Grounded Aesthetic Modern clean lines juxtaposed with natural texture and materials, create a warm and inviting kitchen that feels casual and luxurious at the same time. Leicht Minera Kiruna cabinets with natural wood and woven elements define the kitchen in this vast open space. Floating wood shelves highlight the functional items that add character and personality to the space. The distinctive large island includes the prestigious Gaggenau gas & induction combination cooktops for the homeowners’ culinary and entertainment lifestyle. Bold Neutrals The deliberate kitchen palette of natural neutral colors is a nod to the Modern Rustic high style. Textured deep grays and black hues combined with an organic natural wood palette, evokes sophistication and warmth. Neolith Nero Zimbabwe Riverwashed countertop and low backsplash with its deep rich color and rough texture adds to the curated mix. Minera Kiruna panels complete the backsplash composition with its natural metal vibe.

Youthful tradition for a bustling young family. Refined and elegant, deliberate and thoughtful — with outdoor living fun.
Transitional backyard stone and kidney-shaped natural pool photo in Other

A single curve does a lot of work here. Rising from the main level to a wraparound balcony above, this staircase earns its place at the center of the home — not just structurally, but visually. Black iron balusters and handrails push against crisp white risers in a contrast that feels deliberate rather than decorative. The open floor plan gives it room to breathe, letting the curve read as architecture rather than furniture. The result is a staircase that creates movement even when no one is on it. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

After photo of the fireplace. The natural stone was whitewashed to blend into the color scheme of the house. The whitewash was deliberately thinned so that that some of the color of the stone can peek through.

An Ohio family in search of a place to enjoy the Portuguese coast acquired a four-bedroom apartment just outside the center of Cascais. Our studio was engaged to turn a compartmented interior into a holiday residence for a household that gathers in numbers: one that could seat everyone at once and still hold the ease and lightness of a home by the beach. The original plan included a kitchen and laundry room sealed off from the living room, floor finishes and levels that changed from threshold to threshold, and bathrooms in varying styles. Work began by redefining the alignments and circulation. The principal transformation was the opening of the kitchen, creating a more generous social setting centered on a bespoke island fitted with storage and seating. The interior takes its cues from the building’s geometric façade, which projects and recedes in volumes and voids. Bespoke joinery in oak and lacquer carries continuity and order through the apartment. Concealed storage runs throughout: at the entrance, in the dining area, along the living area, and beneath built-in benches. The laundry is merged into the kitchen behind perforated doors for ventilation while keeping the service area discreet. Behind the sofa, a console slips a workspace into the living area without conceding its openness. Curved elements answer the rectilinear architecture; artisanal glazed vertical tiles repeat from the backsplashes onto custom side tables. The palette stays deliberately narrow; the muted oak and lacquer are joined by a softened timber floor, Portuguese Lioz stone, and walls painted to the color of bare plaster. Existing doors and baseboards were repainted in a warm light gray that draws the original elements into the language of the new interior. Upholstery and decorative accents hint at the terracotta, sky blue, and yellow of the façade. The bedrooms are set with upholstered headboards on oak frames, bedside tables that extend those outlines, and wardrobes fit for a long stay. Locally made rugs, bedcovers, and throw pillows soften the composition. In the bathrooms, the plans were reorganized and the showers enlarged. Lioz was used for the counters and sinks, shelves, shower bases, and bathtub surround, with microcement bringing a soothing warmth to the walls, and storage in floating cabinets. Deeper in tone than the rest of the apartment yet never dim, they are quietly elegant rooms made for lingering — taking one’s time getting ready, or unwinding at the end of a day. PHOTOGRAPHY: © ALEXANDER BOGORODSKIY

Bedroom - mid-sized rustic guest medium tone wood floor and brown floor bedroom idea in Other with white walls

The knock down & rebuild revolution is here to stay. This new modern family home replaces a tired old house that was not designed to capitalise on its location, whereas this new contemporary modern building has been designed to capitalise on the natural environment – natural sunlight, sea breezes & sea views, to create a very liveable coastal family home. This new residence with its contemporary coastal styling utilises the natural finishes of modern materials to ground this family home’s context into this locations evolving executive seaside neighbourhood. This buildings design is a balance of form & function with a deliberate consideration of passive solar liveable design techniques, designed to capture the natural sunlight, sea breezes & sea views that this property offers. This new residence has been designed with a variety of indoor & outdoor living areas to capitalise on the natural environment & climate of this property’s location. This house incorporates design elements to allow the house to be comfortable all year round, providing a variety of areas for occupants to utilise, whether it be capturing natural sunlight & warmth in winter, creating cooling cross ventilation from sea breezes in summer & then there is the direct access to a beautifully natural landscaped garden, this new house will provide the occupants with a low maintenance, healthy living environment for years to come.

These bathrooms are composed with clean architectural clarity, balancing crisp geometry and warm materiality. Large-format stone tile wraps the walls and sloped ceilings to create a continuous, monolithic envelope, while custom millwork and floating vanities reinforce strong horizontal lines and visual order. The freestanding tub reads as a sculptural element within the space, and warm wood flooring softens the palette and grounds the composition. Brushed brass fixtures provide subtle contrast and refinement, resulting in a calm, well-proportioned interior where detailing and material transitions are deliberately restrained.

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

A green roof is a layer of vegetation (living plants) deliberately put on top of a conventional roof surface and bringing a whole host of benefits to the building and the environment. On a sedum roof, the majority of the plants are low growing succulents from the sedum, or stonecrop, family.

This Raleigh, NC home was reimagined from the ground up — not room by room, but as a single, cohesive expression of how a family lives, gathers, and rests. The architecture drove every decision. Custom millwork and panel molding were carried through every space, creating a visual language that connects the entry to the living room, the dining room to the primary suite. It's what makes the home feel complete — not like a collection of individually finished rooms. In the kitchen, a full marble slab backsplash reads as one uninterrupted surface — giving the room its presence without competing with the custom white inset cabinetry and brushed nickel hardware. The dining room lives in deliberate contrast: deep-toned oak table, delicate botanical wallpaper, antique mirror. Light and organic, yet entirely considered. The living room was designed around its connection to the outside — French doors that open directly to a substantial outdoor kitchen and entertaining space, anchored on the interior by a cast stone fireplace with an arched surround that commands the room. The entry sets the expectation for everything that follows: a double-height foyer, geometric pendants cascading from above, large-scale original artwork, and a carved console that makes the first impression without overstating it. Designed and executed by Lavish — Raleigh, NC's full-service interior design and remodeling firm.

Minimalism isn’t supposed to be vanilla—this one actually earns the label. Clean, modern simplicity is the core, but it’s rich in intention. Every line, surface, and texture is deliberate; emptiness feels calculated, not lazy. The subdued palette and essentialist layout speak to refined restraint, yet the space still communicates a quiet, confident presence. Real minimalism with character—not stripped, but sharpened.

Today’s investment landscape in California features a surge in transforming single-family lots into vibrant multi-family residences, facilitated by recent SB9 and ADU laws. This project exemplifies how a modest 6,750-square-foot lot can accommodate a 1,500-square-foot primary home alongside a 2,500-square-foot duplex, seamlessly integrating design, functionality, and neighborhood aesthetics. The primary residence underwent a meticulous interior transformation, evolving from a 3-bedroom, 1.5-bath layout into a spacious 4-bedroom, 2-bath home. Strategic reconfigurations centered around creating an expansive great room—an open-concept space adorned with vaulted ceilings—where the kitchen, dining, and living areas converge into a magnificent communal zone. Exterior updates further distinguish the property. The front and side yards are enclosed with fencing and privacy hedges, linked by concrete pathways that enhance outdoor functionality while compensating for backyard space lost during renovations. The exterior façade was refreshed with darker tones, deliberately contrasting with the duplex to emphasize architectural separation. Designed to preserve the suburban charm, the duplex visually mimics a single-family home from the street. Its facade creates an illusion of a two-story residence, maintaining harmony within the neighborhood fabric. The main unit, developed under SB9 guidelines, features three bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a luxurious parents’ suite situated upstairs. Downstairs, two bedrooms share a full bath, creating a balanced family-oriented layout. The duplex’s interior boasts 9-foot ceilings throughout, elevating the sense of space and openness. The design thoughtfully places the kitchen at the front, inviting guests into the home, while stairs on the right lead to the private upstairs bedroom suite. The ADU offers a two bedroom and two & half baths. the unit is accessible via a private side entrance with a dedicated walkway. Its layout includes a ground-floor living room, a galley kitchen, and a discreet powder room beneath the stairs, designed to contain guest traffic and maintain privacy upstairs. The upstairs bedrooms each feature luxurious bathrooms with expansive showers, adding an element of modern elegance. Both units enjoy thoughtfully landscaped outdoor spaces—private patios, backyard areas, and gated front yards—creating welcoming environments for residents and visitors alike. This project exemplifies innovative urban infill solutions, blending architectural elegance with legal compliance and community harmony—an inspiring blueprint for the future of residential development in California.

Gylden æra embraces the timeless elegance of Scandinavian minimalism in a compact apartment. By streamlining layout and materials, it creates a serene, deliberate environment where simplicity speaks volumes. Every detail is intentionally crafted—from the seamless integration of functional areas to the uncluttered circulation paths. The design presents a visual calm that enhances both daily living and quiet reflection. Soft woods, matte surfaces, and warm neutrals anchor the scheme. Subtle use of light tones amplifies natural light and expands spatial perception. Textural variations—like woven textiles, fine-grain wood, and matte finishes—add depth without compromising simplicity. Minimalist lighting design—wall-mounted fixtures, linear pendants—complements the space's architectural rhythm without drawing attention away. Strategic layering of natural and ambient light enhances mood while maintaining visual clarity. Gylden æra feels both peaceful and poised—moderated yet expressive. It captures a balance of restrained luxury and everyday comfort, honoring Scandinavian roots.

The planting scheme was kept deliberately simple with bulbs for spring colour, easy care perennials to fill out quickly and a few key evergreens to provide structure.

Cream-colored stone steps with a hand-chiseled edge rise through the hillside, gravel paths winding between them. The soft, cool tones were chosen deliberately — a calm counterpoint to the warmer stone of the existing retaining wall below. Boulder walls create layered garden spaces on either side, bringing both stability and calm to this sloped backyard. At the top, a bench hangs from a grand cedar, a place to stop, sit, and take in the view beyond.

Our Herndon customers returned to MOSS (after a successful kitchen addition project) to update several areas of their home. Included in the remodel were the conversion of the home's carport to a full garage with plenty of storage, the transformation of an attached sunroom into a more deliberately designed space (especially for hanging out as a family versus serving as a storage catch all), and the full update of the home's hallway bathroom to once again showcase the family's love of color.

Open-concept dining room in a Lake Washington waterfront remodel by Hyde Evans Design, Seattle. A dramatic statement light fixture anchors the space above the dining table, compensating for the low ceilings with vertical presence. Deep blue upholstered chairs bring the clients' desired color into an otherwise neutral palette, and vintage mid-century end tables ground the room with warmth and character. The main level flows seamlessly between living, dining, and kitchen — a deliberate open-plan layout designed for both active family life and effortless entertaining. Photography: Andrew Giammarco. Architecture: CAST Architecture. Build: Align Builds. Interior Design: Hyde Evans Design, Seattle, WA.

This Raleigh, NC home was reimagined from the ground up — not room by room, but as a single, cohesive expression of how a family lives, gathers, and rests. The architecture drove every decision. Custom millwork and panel molding were carried through every space, creating a visual language that connects the entry to the living room, the dining room to the primary suite. It's what makes the home feel complete — not like a collection of individually finished rooms. In the kitchen, a full marble slab backsplash reads as one uninterrupted surface — giving the room its presence without competing with the custom white inset cabinetry and brushed nickel hardware. The dining room lives in deliberate contrast: deep-toned oak table, delicate botanical wallpaper, antique mirror. Light and organic, yet entirely considered. The living room was designed around its connection to the outside — French doors that open directly to a substantial outdoor kitchen and entertaining space, anchored on the interior by a cast stone fireplace with an arched surround that commands the room. The entry sets the expectation for everything that follows: a double-height foyer, geometric pendants cascading from above, large-scale original artwork, and a carved console that makes the first impression without overstating it. Designed and executed by Lavish — Raleigh, NC's full-service interior design and remodeling firm.