Photography by Kim Jeffery
Inspiration for a contemporary entryway remodel in Toronto

This back living room makeover was for some of our favorite clients we've worked with before. They have excellent eclectic taste and are so fun to work with! They wanted to makeover their den that was right off the kitchen. They wanted to replace the back patio double door and adjacent windows with a wall of windows. This room was really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, so proper insulation was a must! The ceiling had reoccurring cracks, that needed repair. We installed energy efficient windows and added insulation in the walls. We fixed the ceiling cracks and repaired it so it wouldn't happen again in the future. A sliding door was added to the drive way side, to mirror the other sliding door, where a window was before. Three large 7' x 6' windows were added along the back of the room, so the homeowners could enjoy their backyard from the comfort of inside their home. The wood beams added a nice contrast to the Benjamin Moore Mt. Rainier Gray paint. The homeowners picked out a really cool Thomas O'Brien 'Ziyi' lighting fixture that hangs above their kitchen table for an eclectic finish to this beautiful space.

This back living room makeover was for some of our favorite clients we've worked with before. They have excellent eclectic taste and are so fun to work with! They wanted to makeover their den that was right off the kitchen. They wanted to replace the back patio double door and adjacent windows with a wall of windows. This room was really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, so proper insulation was a must! The ceiling had reoccurring cracks, that needed repair. We installed energy efficient windows and added insulation in the walls. We fixed the ceiling cracks and repaired it so it wouldn't happen again in the future. A sliding door was added to the drive way side, to mirror the other sliding door, where a window was before. Three large 7' x 6' windows were added along the back of the room, so the homeowners could enjoy their backyard from the comfort of inside their home. The wood beams added a nice contrast to the Benjamin Moore Mt. Rainier Gray paint. The homeowners picked out a really cool Thomas O'Brien 'Ziyi' lighting fixture that hangs above their kitchen table for an eclectic finish to this beautiful space.

Euro-Dor is the ultimate carved vinyl Carriage House Door. Low-maintenance and functionality in a superior design make Euro-Dor an investment that will add long-lasting curb appeal and value to your home. Insulated and 1-7/16" thick Carriage House Door. The exterior and perimeter joints are solid High-Impact Vinyl which completely seals out the elements. Pictured here is the Fimbel Design from the Euro Dor Collection.

Jared McKenna Photography
Example of a mountain style exterior home design in Boston

Example of an eclectic bedroom design in Los Angeles

This LEED Platinum certified house reflects the homeowner's desire for an exceptionally healthy and comfortable living environment, within a traditional neighborhood. INFILL SITE. The family, who moved from another area of Wellesley, sought out this property to be within walking distance of the high school and downtown area. An existing structure on the tight lot was removed to make way for the new home. 84% of the construction waste, from both the previous structure and the new home, was diverted from a landfill. ZED designed to preserve the existing mature trees on the perimeter of the property to minimize site impacts, and to maintain the character of the neighborhood as well as privacy on the site. EXTERIOR EXPRESSION. The street facade of the home relates to the local New England vernacular. The rear uses contemporary language, a nod to the family’s Californian roots, to incorporate a roof deck, solar panels, outdoor living space, and the backyard swimming pool. ZED’s careful planning avoided to the need to face the garage doors towards the street, a common syndrome of a narrow lot. THOUGHTFUL SPACE. Homes with dual entries can often result in duplicate and unused spaces. In this home, the everyday and formal entry areas are one and the same; the front and garage doors share the entry program of coat closets, mudroom storage with bench for removing your shoes, and a laundry room with generous closets for the children's sporting equipment. The entry area leads directly to the living space, encompassing the kitchen, dining and sitting area areas in an L-shaped open plan arrangement. The kitchen is placed at the south-west corner of the space to allow for a strong connection to the dining, sitting and outdoor living spaces. A fire pit on the deck satisfies the family’s desire for an open flame while a sealed gas fireplace is used indoors - ZED’s preference after omitting gas burning appliances completely from an airtight home. A small study, with a window seat, is conveniently located just off of the living space. A first floor guest bedroom includes an accessible bathroom for aging visitors and can be used as a master suite to accommodate aging in place. HEALTHY LIVING. The client requested a home that was easy to clean and would provide a respite from seasonal allergies and common contaminants that are found in many indoor spaces. ZED selected easy to clean solid surface flooring throughout, provided ample space for cleaning supplies on each floor, and designed a mechanical system with ventilation that provides a constant supply of fresh outdoor air. ZED selected durable materials, finishes, cabinetry, and casework with low or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and no added urea formaldehyde. YEAR-ROUND COMFORT. The home is super insulated and air-tight, paired with high performance triple-paned windows, to ensure it is draft-free throughout the winter (even when in front of the large windows and doors). ZED designed a right-sized heating and cooling system to pair with the thermally improved building enclosure to ensure year-round comfort. The glazing on the home maximizes passive solar gains, and facilitates cross ventilation and daylighting. ENERGY EFFICIENT. As one of the most energy efficient houses built to date in Wellesley, the home highlights a practical solution for Massachusetts. First, the building enclosure reduces the largest energy requirement for typical houses (heating). Super-insulation, exceptional air sealing, a thermally broken wall assembly, triple pane windows, and passive solar gain combine for a sizable heating load reduction. Second, within the house only efficient systems consume energy. These include an air source heat pump for heating & cooling, a heat pump hot water heater, LED lighting, energy recovery ventilation, and high efficiency appliances. Lastly, photovoltaics provide renewable energy help offset energy consumption. The result is an 89% reduction in energy use compared to a similar brand new home built to code requirements. RESILIENT. The home will fare well in extreme weather events. During a winter power outage, heat loss will be very slow due to the super-insulated and airtight envelope– taking multiple days to drop to 60 degrees even with no heat source. An engineered drainage system, paired with careful the detailing of the foundation, will help to keep the finished basement dry. A generator will provide full operation of the all-electric house during a power outage. OVERALL. The home is a reflection of the family goals and an expression of their values, beautifully enabling health, comfort, safety, resilience, and utility, all while respecting the planet. ZED - Architect & Mechanical Designer Bevilacqua Builders Inc - Contractor Creative Land & Water Engineering - Civil Engineering Barbara Peterson Landscape - Landscape Design Nest & Company - Interior Furnishings Eric Roth Photography - Photography

Hammer & Hand and architect Mitch Snyder transformed a hot, cramped, non-code-compliant attic space into a bright and functional master suite. The existing upstairs attic space had two small and hard-to-access bedrooms and a dangerous staircase. The team added a new dormer on the west side of the house which added an additional 195 square feet to the home. The new space includes a master bedroom, master bathroom with vanity and shower, separate water closet, laundry, walk-in master closet, and option to add a small bedroom (the space is currently being used as an open office area). Additional improvements to the home include an upgraded building envelope, insulation, high efficiency water heater, and minisplit heat pump. Photos by Mitchell Snyder Architecture.

When choosing a new garage door consider adding windows to the design to set the stage for extra style! Since most street-facing garage doors take up a large percentage of your home's facade (often 30% to 40%) many homeowners include windows in their garage door to (1) break up an otherwise 'blocky' appearance of two single doors or one double and (2) to better integrate the garage into the rest of the home's exterior look. Shown here: White insulated steel garage door with short panels and a starburst window pattern. | Project and Photo Credits: ProLift Garage Doors of Milwaukee

New garage doors restore rustic charm to this 1950s farmhouse-style garage in rural Vermont. Crisp, white Gallery Collection insulated steel doors add the perfect pop of “color” and prove that you don’t have to sacrifice character or durability to match the era of a vintage building. Installed by North Country Overhead Door.

The original room was just a screen room with a low flat ceiling constructed over decking. There was a door off to the side with a cumbersome staircase, another door leading to the rear yard and a slider leading into the house. Since the room was all screens it could not really be utilized all four seasons. Another issue, bugs would come in through the decking, the screens and the space under the two screen doors. To create a space that can be utilized all year round we rebuilt the walls, raised the ceiling, added insulation, installed a combination of picture and casement windows and a 12' slider along the deck wall. For the underneath we installed insulation and a new wood look vinyl floor. The space can now be comfortably utilized most of the year.

Klopf Architecture, Arterra Landscape Architects and Henry Calvert of Calvert Ventures Designed and built a new warm, modern, Eichler-inspired, open, indoor-outdoor home on a deeper-than-usual San Mateo Highlands property where an original Eichler house had burned to the ground. The owners wanted multi-generational living and larger spaces than the original home offered, but all parties agreed that the house should respect the neighborhood and blend in stylistically with the other Eichlers. At first the Klopf team considered re-using what little was left of the original home and expanding on it. But after discussions with the owner and builder, all parties agreed that the last few remaining elements of the house were not practical to re-use, so Klopf Architecture designed a new home that pushes the Eichler approach in new directions. One disadvantage of Eichler production homes is that the house designs were not optimized for each specific lot. A new custom home offered the team a chance to start over. In this case, a longer house that opens up sideways to the south fit the lot better than the original square-ish house that used to open to the rear (west). Accordingly, the Klopf team designed an L-shaped “bar” house with a large glass wall with large sliding glass doors that faces sideways instead of to the rear like a typical Eichler. This glass wall opens to a pool and landscaped yard designed by Arterra Landscape Architects. Driving by the house, one might assume at first glance it is an Eichler because of the horizontality, the overhanging flat roof eaves, the dark gray vertical siding, and orange solid panel front door, but the house is designed for the 21st Century and is not meant to be a “Likeler.” You won't see any posts and beams in this home. Instead, the ceiling decking is a western red cedar that covers over all the beams. Like Eichlers, this cedar runs continuously from inside to out, enhancing the indoor / outdoor feeling of the house, but unlike Eichlers it conceals a cavity for lighting, wiring, and insulation. Ceilings are higher, rooms are larger and more open, the master bathroom is light-filled and more generous, with a separate tub and shower and a separate toilet compartment, and there is plenty of storage. The garage even easily fits two of today's vehicles with room to spare. A massive 49-foot by 12-foot wall of glass and the continuity of materials from inside to outside enhance the inside-outside living concept, so the owners and their guests can flow freely from house to pool deck to BBQ to pool and back. During construction in the rough framing stage, Klopf thought the front of the house appeared too tall even though the house had looked right in the design renderings (probably because the house is uphill from the street). So Klopf Architecture paid the framer to change the roofline from how we had designed it to be lower along the front, allowing the home to blend in better with the neighborhood. One project goal was for people driving up the street to pass the home without immediately noticing there is an "imposter" on this lot, and making that change was essential to achieve that goal. This 2,606 square foot, 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom Eichler-inspired new house is located in San Mateo in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Klopf Architecture Project Team: John Klopf, AIA, Klara Kevane Landscape Architect: Arterra Landscape Architects Contractor: Henry Calvert of Calvert Ventures Photography ©2016 Mariko Reed Location: San Mateo, CA Year completed: 2016

Hammer & Hand and architect Mitch Snyder transformed a hot, cramped, non-code-compliant attic space into a bright and functional master suite. The existing upstairs attic space had two small and hard-to-access bedrooms and a dangerous staircase. The team added a new dormer on the west side of the house which added an additional 195 square feet to the home. The new space includes a master bedroom, master bathroom with vanity and shower, separate water closet, laundry, walk-in master closet, and option to add a small bedroom (the space is currently being used as an open office area). Additional improvements to the home include an upgraded building envelope, insulation, high efficiency water heater, and minisplit heat pump. Photos by Mitchell Snyder Architecture.

Photo: Angela Flournoy © 2013 Houzz
Example of a classic shed design in Dallas

Kitchen renovation in penthouse suite, raised the floors with steel beams to accommodate the relocated plumbing lines. Insulated ceiling to add recessed lighting. Added ceiling fans for better circulation. Automatic shades, Fire place, new PTAC units with remote thermostat. Herringbone ceramic floors. Island with wine refrigerator, microwave and seating for 4. Great NYC views. Photo's by Marcello D'Aureli

Dan Vos Construction Company
Example of a beach style bedroom design in Grand Rapids with beige walls

An attic floor in need of some serious renovation, this space had been forgotten and was not in use. After the demolition was completed, the space was framed, insulated and lighting was added. Finally the original hard wood floors were repaired, sanded and stained to match the rest of the house. The all process only took 2 weeks...and as a result the home owners can enjoy a fabulous attic space that can be used as a guest space, home office or playroom..

The Inglenook corner fireplaces offer space saving design to accommodate any open cornered wall. This unit comes in clean faced and louvered circulating models. These fully insulated models include smooth white refractory panels and a textured charcoal powder coat finish. Features Available in Corner (Inglenook), Peninsula (Monterey) and See Through (Craftsman ST/Windsor) models Radiant smooth-faced or circulating louvered Massive smoke dome for reliable operation Insulated firebox for increased performance in colder climates (available in select models) White Refractory Panels Heavy duty log grate Includes mesh fire screens Outside air kit available for maximum performance Durable textured powder coat finish Uses IHP 8 DM Inglenook (1700º) double wall air cooled wood burning chimney Uses IHP 8 HT Inglenook (2100º) heavy gauge double wall air cooled wood burning chimney, recommended for cold climates (required for Canada) 20 Year Limited Warranty

ZeroEnergy Design (ZED) created this modern home for a progressive family in the desirable community of Lexington. Thoughtful Land Connection. The residence is carefully sited on the infill lot so as to create privacy from the road and neighbors, while cultivating a side yard that captures the southern sun. The terraced grade rises to meet the house, allowing for it to maintain a structured connection with the ground while also sitting above the high water table. The elevated outdoor living space maintains a strong connection with the indoor living space, while the stepped edge ties it back to the true ground plane. Siting and outdoor connections were completed by ZED in collaboration with landscape designer Soren Deniord Design Studio. Exterior Finishes and Solar. The exterior finish materials include a palette of shiplapped wood siding, through-colored fiber cement panels and stucco. A rooftop parapet hides the solar panels above, while a gutter and site drainage system directs rainwater into an irrigation cistern and dry wells that recharge the groundwater. Cooking, Dining, Living. Inside, the kitchen, fabricated by Henrybuilt, is located between the indoor and outdoor dining areas. The expansive south-facing sliding door opens to seamlessly connect the spaces, using a retractable awning to provide shade during the summer while still admitting the warming winter sun. The indoor living space continues from the dining areas across to the sunken living area, with a view that returns again to the outside through the corner wall of glass. Accessible Guest Suite. The design of the first level guest suite provides for both aging in place and guests who regularly visit for extended stays. The patio off the north side of the house affords guests their own private outdoor space, and privacy from the neighbor. Similarly, the second level master suite opens to an outdoor private roof deck. Light and Access. The wide open interior stair with a glass panel rail leads from the top level down to the well insulated basement. The design of the basement, used as an away/play space, addresses the need for both natural light and easy access. In addition to the open stairwell, light is admitted to the north side of the area with a high performance, Passive House (PHI) certified skylight, covering a six by sixteen foot area. On the south side, a unique roof hatch set flush with the deck opens to reveal a glass door at the base of the stairwell which provides additional light and access from the deck above down to the play space. Energy. Energy consumption is reduced by the high performance building envelope, high efficiency mechanical systems, and then offset with renewable energy. All windows and doors are made of high performance triple paned glass with thermally broken aluminum frames. The exterior wall assembly employs dense pack cellulose in the stud cavity, a continuous air barrier, and four inches exterior rigid foam insulation. The 10kW rooftop solar electric system provides clean energy production. The final air leakage testing yielded 0.6 ACH 50 - an extremely air tight house, a testament to the well-designed details, progress testing and quality construction. When compared to a new house built to code requirements, this home consumes only 19% of the energy. Architecture & Energy Consulting: ZeroEnergy Design Landscape Design: Soren Deniord Design Paintings: Bernd Haussmann Studio Photos: Eric Roth Photography