The large island spans about 11 feet. Photo: Sweet Magnolia Photo & Design
Inspiration for a farmhouse galley light wood floor and beige floor kitchen remodel in Houston with shaker cabinets, an island, white cabinets, white backsplash, subway tile backsplash and stainless steel appliances

Inspiration for a large contemporary enclosed carpeted and beige floor home theater remodel in New York with black walls and a media wall

Great room - large rustic medium tone wood floor and brown floor great room idea in New York with white walls

The “handrill” of Corten steel follows the peastone and steel steps down a steep slope to pour into a round basin, emptying into a channel that meanders through the narrow back garden at ground level, ending finally in a boulder fountain. Devised to minimize root disturbance for the tall existing pines on the property, the continuous Corten steel structure is supported by concrete tubes rather than a foundation that would have required extensive excavation. Architect: Wolf Architects, Inc. General Contractor: GF Rhode Construction, Inc. Landscape Contractor: Robert Hanss, Inc. Steel Fabrication: Wovensteel and Richard Duca Water Systems: Pond Creations by Sean Photo by Susan Teare.

Inspiration for a small 1950s master white tile and ceramic tile cement tile floor, white floor and single-sink tub/shower combo remodel in San Francisco with an undermount tub, a two-piece toilet, flat-panel cabinets, light wood cabinets, white walls, an integrated sink, white countertops, a niche and a floating vanity

Inspiration for a mid-sized transitional painted curved wood railing staircase remodel in New York with painted risers

Large trendy master beige tile and stone tile limestone floor and beige floor freestanding bathtub photo in San Francisco with dark wood cabinets, beige walls, flat-panel cabinets, a two-piece toilet, an undermount sink and granite countertops

This is a quintessentially urban prewar-into-modern hybrid: a broad, laterally organized reception room whose principal architectural gesture is the corner glazing that dissolves two walls into a panoramic register of treetops and distant skyline. The plan reads as a series of soft, overlapping conversational precincts rather than a single axial arrangement — a pair of swivel-capable lounge chairs anchoring the window wall, a facing pair of high-backed tub chairs, and a deep tuxedo-profile sofa closing the composition toward the viewer — all orbiting an organically contoured cocktail table that performs as the room's centrifugal keystone. The ceiling is treated with a recessed reveal and shallow soffit that traces the perimeter, a device that both conceals drapery hardware and lifts the plane visually, granting the low-slung modern floor plate an unexpected sense of loft. A blade wall carrying a single framed canvas performs critical spatial work, terminating the living volume while permitting an enfilade sightline through to a secondary dining zone beyond, where a glazed wall of ivy-clad courtyard reads as a green tapestry. The geometry throughout is deliberately curvilinear — barrel-backed seating, amoeboid tabletops, splayed tapered legs — set against the orthogonal discipline of window mullions, drapery pleats, and rectilinear millwork, producing a productive tension between architectural rigor and furnishings that behave sculpturally. **II. Materiality, Color & Texture** The palette is a study in tonal restraint calibrated for maximum textural incident. Walls are finished in a matte, faintly striated plaster or grasscloth with a warm ecru undertone that absorbs rather than reflects light, establishing a neutral field against which every surface differential registers. Seating is upholstered in a lustrous chenille or crushed velvet of pale greige, whose short pile catches raking daylight and reads almost pearlescent, while the foreground sofa introduces a coarser boucle in an oatmeal register and the opposing sofa shifts decisively into a saturated tobacco-and-umber channel-tufted chenille, its French-polished rosewood or macassar ebony frame supplying the room's darkest, most reflective note. Stone is deployed with connoisseurial precision: the cocktail tables are honed alabaster or backlit-quality onyx, their translucent creamy strata and honey veining offering a warm mineral counterpoint to the cool, ink-washed abstraction of the hand-knotted area rug, which functions as a painterly ground — a gestural silver-and-charcoal wash pooling beneath the furniture. Bronze, patinated brass, and stainless accents appear in table bases, the vessel-form vase, and the sconce, providing metallic punctuation without gleam. Drapery in a heavy sand-toned linen, edged in a beaded or embroidered tape, softens the glazing perimeter and reinforces the room's tactile vocabulary of nap, weave, slub, and polish. **III. Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Natural light is the dominant luminous strategy: the corner glazing admits a soft, diffuse northern wash under overcast conditions, which the designer has intelligently accepted rather than resisted — the flat, shadowless quality flatters the velvet piles and plaster walls, and the drapery is stacked to admit maximum daylight while modulating glare at the jambs. Artificial sources are almost entirely concealed or decorative: a slim architectural sconce on the blade wall, a sculptural biomorphic table lamp in white lacquer or ceramic in the dining zone, and an extraordinary petal-form pendant in patinated metal that reads as an art object first and a fixture second. The resulting atmosphere is hushed, cerebral, and quietly patrician — a room of low chroma and high material intelligence, where drama is supplied by silhouette and surface rather than by color or ornament. Stylistically, the project synthesizes into what might best be termed **Modernist Salon** or **Warm Continental Minimalism**: the DNA of mid-century French decorative arts — Royère, Frank, Adnet — filtered through a contemporary sensibility of tonal layering and soft geometry, with an Art Deco undertow in the ebonized woods and channel tufting. It is a scheme of curatorial discipline: nothing is decorative for its own sake, the view is treated as the primary artwork, and every material is selected for how it behaves in light.

Marc Frayne
Design ideas for a modern landscaping in Philadelphia.

The English Contractor & Remodeling Services, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2020 Regional CotY Award Winner, Residential Detached Structure
Large detached four-car garage photo in Cincinnati

Trendy living room photo in Los Angeles

Laura Sumrack
Mountain style formal dark wood floor living room photo in Salt Lake City with white walls and a wood stove

Close up of Ship Lap Mountain Range. Photography by John Woodcock
Example of a small and bedroom trendy boy kids' bedroom design in Phoenix with blue walls

©Nathan Kirkman 2013
Example of a mid-sized trendy deck container garden design in Chicago

Levi Clark
Inspiration for a timeless front door remodel in Seattle with a red front door

1960s courtyard tile patio photo in San Francisco with no cover

Still waiting for that walk!! Photos by Stacy Zarin-Goldberg
Mudroom - large traditional slate floor mudroom idea in DC Metro with blue walls

Bedroom and fireplace.
Tuscan medium tone wood floor bedroom photo in Santa Barbara with beige walls and a standard fireplace

Inspiration for a transitional laundry room remodel in Toronto with shaker cabinets and blue cabinets