Example of a large tuscan master porcelain tile bedroom design in Dallas with beige walls, a standard fireplace and a stone fireplace

Elegant patio photo in San Francisco

Jake Boyd Photography
Example of a mid-sized transitional l-shaped medium tone wood floor open concept kitchen design in Other with shaker cabinets, white cabinets, quartz countertops, gray backsplash, mosaic tile backsplash, stainless steel appliances and an island

Beach style living room photo in Boston

Add lit decor pieces like battery-operated flameless candles, votives and tea light sets to a dining or banquet table for soft, ambient additions that will last all dinner long!

2012 NARI Capital CotY, Finalist Award Winner, Residential Kitchen $50,000 to $100,000 Baby boomers were getting ready to give a facelift to their home. Dragged looking run down kitchen was no match with the rest of their prominent Mclean neighbors. A big peninsula with a huge overhead hood had blocked off kitchen from breakfast room. Doorways were narrow. A wall of brick chimney style occupied the left wall of this kitchen. “Crowded and disturbing” is how the wife described her kitchen. Pour traffic flow pattern, lack of storage, and no rhyme or rhythm was how we saw the place. Course of action started with regrouping all tall elements into a low visibility wall. Eliminate the peninsula, then creating a nice and inviting kitchen with wide pathway by the way of Middle Island. Eliminate bulkheads, ducts and plumbing inside of them. Re-route the soil stack for upper bathrooms to an adjacent wall. We relocated stove into the east wall, and build a beautiful wood mantel hood above it. This given this kitchen a practical work triangle. Then brought plumbing for prep. sink into the Island just couple steps away for multi-purpose use. The north wall now have been occupied with tall pantry, big built in fridge and double oven cabinet . There were two walls in the breakfast room that had not been used and now e have put them to good use for added storage and butler area and glass front cabinetry to display their valuable china. Widening all doorways have and putting middle Island have improved the look and traffic pattern for garage into family room a lot more comfortable than it has ever been. Use of light glazed cabinetry with a contrasting custom Mahogany wood countertop are part of highlight of this project and delivers one of customer’s wishes of bright and clean kitchen. We have installed exotic mahogany floors to compliment center wood Island. Floors also had created a casual ambiance, especially against the soft lemon chiffon wall paint. The ultimate French country style kitchen was completed with furnishing the old breakfast area with casual seating rather than a formal table. This couple was inspired by this massive transformation to carry on the remodeling to other parts of their humbled home.

Trowelled on stone application. Faux finish. Random textured broken/block stone with textured grout. Break-away stone. Tromp L'oiel block stone molding. Dragged molding. Moody sky mural on ceiling. Dragged columns.

Mountain style exterior home photo in Charlotte

Allison Corona
Living room - 1950s living room idea in Boise

Inspiration for a large transitional l-shaped porcelain tile and gray floor eat-in kitchen remodel in New York with shaker cabinets, paneled appliances, an island, an undermount sink, white cabinets and marble countertops

Built in Bookshelves, Built in Desk
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Bathroom - transitional bathroom idea in Minneapolis

This is a 50'' Orton Style Rumford Fireplace at my home in Oxford,CT. A Rumford Firplace is made with either a straight rear wall or a slanted one. The slanted ones are the better heaters and I just proved "the more efficient" as they do not have a bigger throat area than the straight variety. The book "The Forgotten Art of Building a Good Fireplace" written bu Vrest Orton in the late 60's descibes the slanted variety well and that is where they picked up the name. He did not invent them rather he wrote of what he witnessed as being nice enjoyable good heating Rumfords . It uses my self made damper and burns all winter long with the damper blade at only a 1-3/4'''' gap opening. This represents a throat area to fireplace opening area of 1 to 30 a achievement that recently left the top authority on Rumford Fireplaces in awe and disbelief as his straight backed Rumfords only get to a 1:20 ratio. Although he remained skeptical and wanting more explicit videos and refusing to sign a nondisclosure agreement, he wanted to know if I could do the same with his chosen styled Rumfords. With a large or small fire the damper stays fixed. Weather is a non issue, even foggy drizzly nights do not effect this fireplace. There are videos at FCasini on You Tube showing the 50'' burning along with my basement 36'' Orton which I did experimenting last winter . The basement [never used before] has no face, so I affixed a steel panel on it to see if it could burn at the same ratio as my 50'' which uses my self made 30 year old damper. Iinstead it has a custom vestal damper which I cut the front off as I occasionally do when the budget is limited. It burned good at a 1 to 26 ratio which is way above the 1/17 that Straight Back Rumfords normally do although their very best is 1/20 ..both of which depend on the use of the highly suggested Tee Pee Fire which will assist any fireplace in smoke evacuation due to solely emitting the smoke form the high end of the standing logs! Both of my fireplaces certainly can use this style fire but I enjoy the horizontal log cabin style because of the easy loading and longer lasting fire per load. This winter I am going to affix a glass panel to get a good look at the throat and inner breast chamber while the fireplace is burning. This will be done in my third [ also un faced like the basement] Rumford. This one uses an outside chimney that is about 18' tall, much shorter than the other two and not as warm an environment being the other two are interior chimneys. I am anxious to see if it will compete with a lesser draft ? I have been searching the patent data base and to date there is nothing close to even resemble the way I get these slanted fireplaces to pass the smoke through such a ridiculously thin throat which I call "The Gates Of Hell". The prototype is complete and installed into this fireplace which is in it's second year of performance testing and doing better than I expected, in fact before installing it last week I cleaned the throat and chimney and damper blade which hasn't been done in 6 years. This did help the performance a lot as the passage is so thin any build up greatly slows it down from the added viscosity ie flow drag. For those that don't understand the benefit of a 1:30 ratio it is half the loss of heated air up the chimney and results in a 50% increase in heat efficiency. This equals a 100% enjoyment factor for anyone whom takes fireplace burning seriously like have done and do for the past 30 years! The house doesn't get sucked cold!

Patio photo in Charlotte

Arlen Naydam
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LFOD? Live free or Die--it is New Hampshire after all... Interiors and styling, Lisa Teague
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This spa-like oasis bathroom remodel is a gorgeous place to ease the stress away from a hard day! The color palate as well as the lighting fixtures help this transitional bathroom from drag to fab! Photo By: Merkle's Commerical Photography

These engaging homeowners are fortuitous enough to reside in a three level townhouse on a quiet street in downtown Minneapolis. This couple loves to entertain and host family holidays. Spaces are tight in most urban areas. This townhome is no exception. There was nothing horribly wrong with the way the home was laid out, it just did not serve the needs of the family. The kitchen was tucked up front and forced into a small space, making it difficult for multiple people to be in the space at the same time. The homeowners also wished to upgrade to professional appliances. Due to size and mechanical code restrictions, this was just not possible in the existing space. The back of the townhome had a large living room and good sized dining room. Off this space is a shaded deck and swimming pool, which are used all the time. Traffic always ran from the outdoor entertaining space directly to the kitchen in the front. Not only was this inconvenient, a mess was dragged in from wet swimmers. To alleviate these challenges, we moved the kitchen from the smaller space at the front of the home to the larger space the under utilized living room furniture occupied. This allowed us to curate a large kitchen that fits all their needs, wants, and aesthetic desires. Now there is plenty of room to cook, relax, and bustle about. We also added a wet bar next to the patio door in the dining room. Right by the door is a beverage cooler from which guests may grab beverages and snacks without dragging the outside in with them. Being the homeowners and designer are all members of the creative community in the Twin Cities, it was important to incorporate the work of local artists. This kitchen is fully curated with all Minnesota products (with the exception of the appliances, which are manufactured in Wisconsin). The cabinets and countertops are from larger local companies, while all the other features are hand made by near by artists. These artisan products include a custom stainless steel range hood, black powder coated table base and fireplace mantel, hand made tile for the backsplash and fireplace surround, wood elevated island table, and wood panel backsplash at the bar. Hand made tiles had previously been installed in the existing kitchen. The color of these tiles is no longer available. It was the home- owners desire to preserve these tiles somehow. We cut the tile off the walls and soaked the drywall from them. We then installed them in the powder room as a feature behind the vanity and mirror.