Greg Pinn, Vice President of Pinn Brothers Fine Homes of San Jose, California, brought his dream to fruition with the completion of his own French Country Chateau. The level of quality and the attention to detail found in every aspect of his residence is a tribute to the craftsmanship of the professionals who helped build it as well as the beautiful materials that made it possible. When selecting the stone and brick for the home’s exterior, Pinn and his fellow builders contructed a full-scale wall that had four different mockups of various stone profiles and colors before finalizing their selection. Upon taking all the possibilities into consideration, Eldorado’s Fieldledge and Limestone profiles in addition to the Bracciano RomaBrick proved to be just the product their team was looking for, all of which were installed using an overgrout technique. Having worked with Eldorado exclusively for close to 10 years on all of his projects, Pinn had Eldorado in mind when the architectural plans were in the beginning stages of development and felt confident from the get-go that Eldorado would be their stone and brick of choice. By working with Eldorado, Pinn was able to implement the look of natural stone in several places throughout the home. There was extensive use of both stone and brick on the retaining walls of his yard, around the pook, the outdoor living space, and on all the chimney stacks. He also dressed the majority of the home’s exterior in Eldorado’s stone and brick because of its affordability and ease of installation versus natural stone. An added bonus was that Pinn won’t have difficulty finding similar stones if need be like he would using stone from a quarry. He can rely on the consistency and availability of Eldorado, regardless of the amount of time that goes by. According to Pinn, Eldorado Stone made all the difference in the success of creating his very own French Country Chateau. Eldorado Stone Profile Featured: Austin Cream Limestone (20%), Custom Large Fieldledge (20%) and Custom Fieldledge (60%), both in Austin Cream color with an overgrout technique Eldorado Brick Profile Featured: Bracciano RomaBrick with an overgrout technique Builder: Pinn Brothers Fine Homes, San Jose, CA Architect: Knitter & Associates, Newport Beach, CA Website: www.knitter.com Landscape Architect: Robert Mowat & Associates, San Francisco, CA Website: www.rmalandscape.com Mason: San Marino Masonry, Anaheim, CA Website: www.vecompanies.com Design Consultant: Marni Leis, San Francisco, CA

With a narrow driveway and leaning concrete retaining walls, parking was a major challenge at this 1938 brick Tudor on Spokane's South Hill. Crumbling concrete stairs added another layer of difficulty, and after a particularly rough winter, the homeowners were ready for a change. The failing concrete walls were replaced with stacked boulders, which created space for a new, wider driveway. Natural stone steps offer access to the backyard, while the new front stairs and sidewalk provide a safe route to the front door. The original iron railings were preserved and modified to be reused with the new stairs.

Friends and Lovers Photography
Bedroom - large 1960s master carpeted bedroom idea in Denver with gray walls

Spiral stair to a roof top deck of a new custom home in Old Saybrook, CT designed by Jennifer Morgenthau Architect, LLC
Inspiration for a large farmhouse beige two-story vinyl house exterior remodel in Bridgeport with a gambrel roof and a shingle roof

With a narrow driveway and leaning concrete retaining walls, parking was a major challenge at this 1938 brick Tudor on Spokane's South Hill. Crumbling concrete stairs added another layer of difficulty, and after a particularly rough winter, the homeowners were ready for a change. The failing concrete walls were replaced with stacked boulders, which created space for a new, wider driveway. Natural stone steps offer access to the backyard, while the new front stairs and sidewalk provide a safe route to the front door. The original iron railings were preserved and modified to be reused with the new stairs.

Greg Pinn, Vice President of Pinn Brothers Fine Homes of San Jose, California, brought his dream to fruition with the completion of his own French Country Chateau. The level of quality and the attention to detail found in every aspect of his residence is a tribute to the craftsmanship of the professionals who helped build it as well as the beautiful materials that made it possible. When selecting the stone and brick for the home’s exterior, Pinn and his fellow builders contructed a full-scale wall that had four different mockups of various stone profiles and colors before finalizing their selection. Upon taking all the possibilities into consideration, Eldorado’s Fieldledge and Limestone profiles in addition to the Bracciano RomaBrick proved to be just the product their team was looking for, all of which were installed using an overgrout technique. Having worked with Eldorado exclusively for close to 10 years on all of his projects, Pinn had Eldorado in mind when the architectural plans were in the beginning stages of development and felt confident from the get-go that Eldorado would be their stone and brick of choice. By working with Eldorado, Pinn was able to implement the look of natural stone in several places throughout the home. There was extensive use of both stone and brick on the retaining walls of his yard, around the pook, the outdoor living space, and on all the chimney stacks. He also dressed the majority of the home’s exterior in Eldorado’s stone and brick because of its affordability and ease of installation versus natural stone. An added bonus was that Pinn won’t have difficulty finding similar stones if need be like he would using stone from a quarry. He can rely on the consistency and availability of Eldorado, regardless of the amount of time that goes by. According to Pinn, Eldorado Stone made all the difference in the success of creating his very own French Country Chateau. Eldorado Stone Profile Featured: Austin Cream Limestone (20%), Custom Large Fieldledge (20%) and Custom Fieldledge (60%), both in Austin Cream color with an overgrout technique Eldorado Brick Profile Featured: Bracciano RomaBrick with an overgrout technique Builder: Pinn Brothers Fine Homes, San Jose, CA Architect: Knitter & Associates, Newport Beach, CA Website: www.knitter.com Landscape Architect: Robert Mowat & Associates, San Francisco, CA Website: www.rmalandscape.com Mason: San Marino Masonry, Anaheim, CA Website: www.vecompanies.com Design Consultant: Marni Leis, San Francisco, CA

Photo: Carolyn Reyes © 2016 Houzz Kitchen
Transitional kitchen photo in Los Angeles

Angie Seckinger
Inspiration for a coastal bathroom remodel in DC Metro

Main Line Kitchen Design is a unique business model! We are a group of skilled Kitchen Designers each with many years of experience planning kitchens around the Delaware Valley. And we are cabinet dealers for 8 nationally distributed cabinet lines much like traditional showrooms. Appointment Information Unlike full showrooms open to the general public, Main Line Kitchen Design works only by appointment. Appointments can be scheduled days, nights, and weekends either in your home or in our office and selection center. During office appointments we display clients kitchens on a flat screen TV and help them look through 100’s of sample doorstyles, almost a thousand sample finish blocks and sample kitchen cabinets. During home visits we can bring samples, take measurements, and make design changes on laptops showing you what your kitchen can look like in the very room being renovated. This is more convenient for our customers and it eliminates the expense of staffing and maintaining a larger space that is open to walk in traffic. We pass the significant savings on to our customers and so we sell cabinetry for less than other dealers, even home centers like Lowes and The Home Depot. We believe that since a web site like Houzz.com has over half a million kitchen photos, any advantage to going to a full kitchen showroom with full kitchen displays has been lost. Almost no customer today will ever get to see a display kitchen in their door style and finish because there are just too many possibilities. And the design of each kitchen is unique anyway. Our design process allows us to spend more time working on our customer’s designs. This is what we enjoy most about our business and it is what makes the difference between an average and a great kitchen design. Among the kitchen cabinet lines we design with and sell are Jim Bishop, 6 Square, Fabuwood, Brighton, and Wellsford Fine Custom Cabinetry.

Relaxing Spa Photos by Josh Graham. SHERI KAZ DESIGNS
Example of a trendy gray tile and porcelain tile bathroom design in Denver with flat-panel cabinets, gray cabinets and marble countertops

Integrated fridge/freezer Subzero units with bi-pass swinging door into walk in pantry.
Large elegant u-shaped medium tone wood floor, brown floor and exposed beam eat-in kitchen photo in Other with an undermount sink, beaded inset cabinets, medium tone wood cabinets, quartz countertops, white backsplash, quartz backsplash, black appliances, two islands and white countertops

The brief: Our clients own an apartment in a mansion block overlooking Clapham Common. They wanted to modernise and bring the apartment up to date and had a few goals: To change the existing small cellular spaces in the apartment to create a new open-plan room To extend into the loft and create a new master bedroom suite To create a roof terrace for some much-needed private outdoor space The key to the brief was to ensure a good connection between the different levels of the apartment and ensure natural light could flood into all spaces. The apartment is in a conservation area, which was an important consideration. The solution: We changed the primary room space to run from the front to the back of the building. This change created the large kitchen dining living space our clients wanted, an area with good natural light throughout and at all times of the day. We created a master bedroom suite in the loft space, with generous room size and lots of natural light. The limitations of the building’s form meant that a critical aspect to creating these larger living spaces was carefully considered smaller areas, including the bathrooms and a pocket utility room. The circulation space was carefully considered, too, with the landings used for storage in the form of new joinery. The stairs were vital in the design. Creating an in-between/half level meant we made the most of the flat roof extension for a bedroom suite and terrace. It also helped natural light get into the centre of the apartment, creating a clear connection between the different floors. The stairs also help to mark the difference between the existing and the new. We shifted the design from a minimalist take on traditional metal balustraded stairs to open tread steel stairs with a glazed balustrade. Externally, we kept the design quite simple and in keeping with the context. By adding dormers to the front and back, we created a sculptural and fun loft space. The result: A spacious, light and luxurious apartment for our clients Gareth and Mary in a Clapham Common Conservation area. We asked about their experience with Granit, and we are pleased with their response: Our experience overall is very good, even with the unexpected difficulties created by Covid. If you are thinking of appointing an architect and interior design firm, Granit should be seriously considered.

The brief: Our clients own an apartment in a mansion block overlooking Clapham Common. They wanted to modernise and bring the apartment up to date and had a few goals: To change the existing small cellular spaces in the apartment to create a new open-plan room To extend into the loft and create a new master bedroom suite To create a roof terrace for some much-needed private outdoor space The key to the brief was to ensure a good connection between the different levels of the apartment and ensure natural light could flood into all spaces. The apartment is in a conservation area, which was an important consideration. The solution: We changed the primary room space to run from the front to the back of the building. This change created the large kitchen dining living space our clients wanted, an area with good natural light throughout and at all times of the day. We created a master bedroom suite in the loft space, with generous room size and lots of natural light. The limitations of the building’s form meant that a critical aspect to creating these larger living spaces was carefully considered smaller areas, including the bathrooms and a pocket utility room. The circulation space was carefully considered, too, with the landings used for storage in the form of new joinery. The stairs were vital in the design. Creating an in-between/half level meant we made the most of the flat roof extension for a bedroom suite and terrace. It also helped natural light get into the centre of the apartment, creating a clear connection between the different floors. The stairs also help to mark the difference between the existing and the new. We shifted the design from a minimalist take on traditional metal balustraded stairs to open tread steel stairs with a glazed balustrade. Externally, we kept the design quite simple and in keeping with the context. By adding dormers to the front and back, we created a sculptural and fun loft space. The result: A spacious, light and luxurious apartment for our clients Gareth and Mary in a Clapham Common Conservation area. We asked about their experience with Granit, and we are pleased with their response: Our experience overall is very good, even with the unexpected difficulties created by Covid. If you are thinking of appointing an architect and interior design firm, Granit should be seriously considered.

A sun room that posed some difficulties as a a very large pass through space
Sunroom - huge traditional ceramic tile and white floor sunroom idea in Other with a skylight

As the winemaker for Bowen > Arrow Winery, I had an idea for a vintage-look wine cellar. However, I had difficulty finding a builder that had much experience designing and building wine cellars. So I built it myself, including the wine racks. To help homeowners design and build distinctive wine cellars, I have launched Buckhead Cellars to provide design, construction and custom wine rack solutions.

This project entailed the draining of a 200,000 cubic foot pond which was originally constructed in the early 1900s in order to install a water feature. I had previously dammed the lower pond, which was roughly equivalent in size to the upper pond, with stonework to match the existing stone walkways. The lower pond will be utilized as a catch-basin in an effort to keep the upper pond’s water level at a sufficient height through a pump system. After the removal of over a 100 years worth of sediment, I began constructing several terraces, stone steps, stone walkways, and several stone retaining walls — all stone features were built without the use of mortar so as to allow plant growth, such as vines and flowering plants to grow through the stonework. The difficulty I faced, oddly enough, was trying to be as random as possible with the placement of the stones, so as to make the stonework appear as though it had been built alongside some of the pre-existing 100-year-old stone walls scattered across other areas of the property. In essence, I forced myself to leave larger gaps in between stones where I typically wouldn’t, as well as leave some stones protruding from the wall, and allowing the wall to slightly fluctuate in height. All of which required me to become a perfectionist of randomness, which was quite trying of me. The top 2 feet of the 2,000-foot upper pond was then faced and retained with stone.

The brief: Our clients own an apartment in a mansion block overlooking Clapham Common. They wanted to modernise and bring the apartment up to date and had a few goals: To change the existing small cellular spaces in the apartment to create a new open-plan room To extend into the loft and create a new master bedroom suite To create a roof terrace for some much-needed private outdoor space The key to the brief was to ensure a good connection between the different levels of the apartment and ensure natural light could flood into all spaces. The apartment is in a conservation area, which was an important consideration. The solution: We changed the primary room space to run from the front to the back of the building. This change created the large kitchen dining living space our clients wanted, an area with good natural light throughout and at all times of the day. We created a master bedroom suite in the loft space, with generous room size and lots of natural light. The limitations of the building’s form meant that a critical aspect to creating these larger living spaces was carefully considered smaller areas, including the bathrooms and a pocket utility room. The circulation space was carefully considered, too, with the landings used for storage in the form of new joinery. The stairs were vital in the design. Creating an in-between/half level meant we made the most of the flat roof extension for a bedroom suite and terrace. It also helped natural light get into the centre of the apartment, creating a clear connection between the different floors. The stairs also help to mark the difference between the existing and the new. We shifted the design from a minimalist take on traditional metal balustraded stairs to open tread steel stairs with a glazed balustrade. Externally, we kept the design quite simple and in keeping with the context. By adding dormers to the front and back, we created a sculptural and fun loft space. The result: A spacious, light and luxurious apartment for our clients Gareth and Mary in a Clapham Common Conservation area. We asked about their experience with Granit, and we are pleased with their response: Our experience overall is very good, even with the unexpected difficulties created by Covid. If you are thinking of appointing an architect and interior design firm, Granit should be seriously considered.

HPA incorporates Tyvarian® wall surrounds, a luxurious solution for revamping your bathroom. Mimicking the sublime textures of marble, granite, and travertine, these panels deliver an upmarket aesthetic. Made with artistry in Utah, our wall surrounds incorporate high-definition images to bring you an impressively realistic look and feel. Added Amenities Tyvarian also proposes an assortment of extra amenities to improve your bathroom utilization. The offerings include: Built-in Shampoo Shelves: In an effort to maintain an orderly shower space, these shelves are integrated into the wall surrounds. They offer a convenient location for storing your bath essentials such as shampoo, conditioner, and other products. Shower Seats: For a comfortable showering experience, Tyvarian provides shower seats. These are particularly useful for older people or those who may have difficulty standing for extended periods. Customizable Trims: With Pencil Trim and Mini Pencil Trim options, you can further personalize your bathroom. These trims can be employed to create a unified design scheme across your bathroom, or to introduce a chic contrast.

Inspiration for a transitional dining room remodel in Toronto