This beautiful lake and snow lodge site on the waters edge of Lake Sunapee, and only one mile from Mt Sunapee Ski and Snowboard Resort. The home features conventional and timber frame construction. MossCreek's exquisite use of exterior materials include poplar bark, antique log siding with dovetail corners, hand cut timber frame, barn board siding and local river stone piers and foundation. Inside, the home features reclaimed barn wood walls, floors and ceilings.

The secluded yet compact setting flows from the main street facing the aspect back into the narrow site, with carefully arranged building mass and linked corridors allowing for protected tree roots to remain undisturbed. This creates open views and generosity of space and light to both internal and external spaces. When complete the stunning Ilkley dwelling will enhance the location considerably and provide living space full of fine crafted detail. It will be built on five levels using a steel frame with chestnut cladding and a sedum living roof. It will also feature a lift, 6m deep cellar, a home cinema, gym and Brise Soleil shading system.

The Kiguchi family moved into their Austin, Texas home in 1994. Built in the 1980’s as part of a neighborhood development, they happily raised their family here but longed for something more contemporary. Once they became empty nesters, they decided it was time for a major remodel. After spending many years visiting Austin AIA Home Tours that highlight contemporary residential architecture, they had a lot of ideas and in 2013 were ready to interview architects and get their renovation underway. The project turned into a major remodel due to an unstable foundation. Architects Ben Arbib and Ed Hughey, of Arbib Hughey Design were hired to solve the structural issue and look for inspiration in the bones of the house, which sat on top of a hillside and was surrounded by great views. Unfortunately, with the old floor plan, the beautiful views were hidden by small windows that were poorly placed. In order to bring more natural light into the house the window sizes and configurations had to be addressed, all while keeping in mind the homeowners desire for a modern look and feel. To achieve a more contemporary and sophisticated front of house, a new entry was designed that included removing a two-story bay window and porch. The entrance of the home also became more integrated with the landscape creating a template for new foliage to be planted. Older exterior materials were updated to incorporate a more muted palette of colors with a metal roof, dark grey siding in the back and white stucco in the front. Deep eaves were added over many of the new large windows for clean lines and sun protection. “Inside it was about opening up the floor plan, expanding the views throughout the house, and updating the material palette to get a modern look that was also warm and inviting,” said Ben from Arbib Hughey Design. “Prior to the remodel, the house had the typical separation of rooms. We removed the walls between them and changed all of the windows to Milgard Thermally Improved Aluminum to connect the inside with the outside. No matter where you are you get nice views and natural light.” The architects wanted to create some drama, which they accomplished with the window placement and opening up the interior floor plan to an open concept approach. Cabinetry was used to help delineate intimate spaces. To add warmth to an all-white living room, white-washed oak wood floors were installed and pine planks were used around the fireplace. The large windows served as artwork bringing the color of nature into the space. An octagon shaped, elevated dining room, (named “the turret”), had a big impact on the design of the house. They architects rounded the corners and added larger window openings overlooking a new sunken garden. The great room was also softened by rounding out the corners and that circular theme continued throughout the house, being picked up in skylight wells and kitchen cabinetry. A staircase leading to a catwalk was added and the result was a two-story window wall that flooded the home with natural light. When asked why Milgard® Thermally Improved Aluminum windows were selected, the architectural team listed many reasons: 1) Aesthetics: “We liked the slim profiles and narrow sightlines. The window frames never get in the way of the view and that was important to us. They also have a very contemporary look that went well with our design.” 2) Options: “We liked that we could get large sliding doors that matched the windows, giving us a very cohesive look and feel throughout the project.” 3) Cost Effective: “Milgard windows are affordable. You get a good product at a good price.” 4) Custom Sizes: “Milgard windows are customizable, which allowed us to get the right window for each location.” Ready to take on your own traditional to modern home remodeling project? Arbib Hughey Design advises, “Work with a good architect. That means picking a team that is creative, communicative, listens well and is responsive. We think it’s important for an architect to listen to their clients and give them something they want, not something the architect thinks they should have. At the same time you want an architect who is willing and able to think outside the box and offer up design options that you may not have considered. Design is about a lot of back and forth, trying out ideas, getting feedback and trying again.” The home was completely transformed into a unique, contemporary house perfectly integrated with its site. Internally the home has a natural flow for the occupants and externally it is integrated with the surroundings taking advantage of great natural light. As a side note, it was highly praised as part of the Austin AIA homes tour.

Handmade: Every painting is meticulously created in our workshop, using only the finest eco-friendly materials and employing special texture application techniques. High-Quality: Our premium-grade acrylic paints guarantee vibrant colors that resist fading even when exposed to external factors. Link to site: https: https://www.etsy.com/shop/walldecorbyysart/?etsrc=sdt

Falcon House is located on Falcon Ridge Road, which winds along a steeply inclined ridge in a stretch of foothills within Carmel Valley in Monterey County. An old lichen covered barn and split rail, cedar fences characterize this area known as Markham Ranch, and contrast sharply with the preponderance of sprawling, large estate-style homes, many more at-home in the Italian countryside than any landscape of California. Designed for a young family, Falcon House responds to the family’s desire to live a more modest lifestyle, eschewing overt displays of extravagance for an intimate and deferential relation to nature. The 3,200-square-foot residence occupies a difficult portion of the northern slope of a hillside, overlooking a verdant valley and oriented toward Castle Rock in the distance. The steep terrain necessitated a compartmentalized plan capable of negotiating the gentle hillock at the center of the site. A corridor bridge spans two pieces of the house, uniting living and sleeping spaces and allowing an existing watercourse to flow essentially through the house unobstructed. Large panels of glass open the living spaces to the landscape, beneath the deep overhang of a butterfly roof. Operable clerestories placed high on the window-wall allow prevailing breezes to cool the interior spaces. The bedroom wing of the house hugs the hillside as it turns to the west, ensuring privacy from the main living spaces. The sense of seclusion and protection of this wing is reinforced by its lower roofline and its embedment into the hill. Initial resistance by neighboring homeowners has given way to appreciation, having seen the results of careful siting and a material and color palate sympathetic to the surrounding hillsides. The dwelling embodies an attitude of respect for the landscape, and through that perspective Falcon House has become as natural a part of its environment as the hawks flying overhead. 2008 AIA Orange County Chapter Merit Award

Perfectly settled in the shade of three majestic oak trees, this timeless homestead evokes a deep sense of belonging to the land. The Wilson Architects farmhouse design riffs on the agrarian history of the region while employing contemporary green technologies and methods. Honoring centuries-old artisan traditions and the rich local talent carrying those traditions today, the home is adorned with intricate handmade details including custom site-harvested millwork, forged iron hardware, and inventive stone masonry. Welcome family and guests comfortably in the detached garage apartment. Enjoy long range views of these ancient mountains with ample space, inside and out.

This modern green home offers both a vacation destination on Cape Cod near local family members and an opportunity for rental income. FAMILY ROOTS. A West Coast couple living in the San Francisco Bay Area sought a permanent East Coast vacation home near family members living on Cape Cod. As academic professionals focused on sustainability, they sought a green, energy efficient home that was well-aligned with their values. With no green homes available for sale on Cape Cod, they decided to purchase land near their family and build their own. SLOPED SITE. Comprised of a 3/4 acre lot nestled in the pines, the steeply sloping terrain called for a plan that embraced and took advantage of the slope. Of equal priority was optimizing solar exposure, preserving privacy from abutters, and creating outdoor living space. The design accomplished these goals with a simple, rectilinear form, offering living space on the both entry and lower/basement levels. The stepped foundation allows for a walk-out basement level with light-filled living space on the down-hill side of the home. The traditional basement on the eastern, up-hill side houses mechanical equipment and a home gym. The house welcomes natural light throughout, captures views of the forest, and delivers entertainment space that connects indoor living space to outdoor deck and dining patio. MODERN VISION. The clean building form and uncomplicated finishes pay homage to the modern architectural legacy on the outer Cape. Durable and economical fiber cement panels, fixed with aluminum channels, clad the primary form. Cedar clapboards provide a visual accent at the south-facing living room, which extends a single roof plane to cover the entry porch. SMART USE OF SPACE. On the entry level, the “L”-shaped living, dining, and kitchen space connects to the exterior living, dining, and grilling spaces to effectively double the home’s summertime entertainment area. Placed at the western end of the entry level (where it can retain privacy but still claim expansive downhill views) is the master suite with a built-in study. The lower level has two guest bedrooms, a second full bathroom, and laundry. The flexibility of the space—crucial in a house with a modest footprint—emerges in one of the guest bedrooms, which doubles as home office by opening the barn-style double doors to connect it to the bright, airy open stair leading up to the entry level. Thoughtful design, generous ceiling heights and large windows transform the modest 1,100 sf* footprint into a well-lit, spacious home. *(total finished space is 1800 sf) RENTAL INCOME. The property works for its owners by netting rental income when the owners are home in San Francisco. The house especially caters to vacationers bound for nearby Mayo Beach and includes an outdoor shower adjacent to the lower level entry door. In contrast to the bare bones cottages that are typically available on the Cape, this home offers prospective tenants a modern aesthetic, paired with luxurious and green features. Durable finishes inside and out will ensure longevity with the heavier use that comes with a rental property. COMFORT YEAR-ROUND. The home is super-insulated and air-tight, with mechanical ventilation to provide continuous fresh air from the outside. High performance triple-paned windows complement the building enclosure and maximize passive solar gain while ensuring a warm, draft-free winter, even when sitting close to the glass. A properly sized air source heat pump offers efficient heating & cooling, and includes a carefully designed the duct distribution system to provide even comfort throughout the house. The super-insulated envelope allows us to significantly reduce the equipment capacity, duct size, and airflow quantities, while maintaining unparalleled thermal comfort. ENERGY EFFICIENT. The building’s shell and mechanical systems play instrumental roles in the home’s exceptional performance. The building enclosure reduces the most significant energy glutton: heating. Continuous super-insulation, thorough air sealing, triple-pane windows, and passive solar gain work together to yield a miniscule heating load. All active energy consumers are extremely efficient: an air source heat pump for heating and cooling, a heat pump hot water heater, LED lighting, energy recovery ventilation (ERV), and high efficiency appliances. The result is a home that uses 70% less energy than a similar new home built to code requirements. OVERALL. The home embodies the owners’ goals and values while comprehensively enabling thermal comfort, energy efficiency, a vacation respite, and supplementary income. PROJECT TEAM ZeroEnergy Design - Architect & Mechanical Designer A.F. Hultin & Co. - Contractor Pamet Valley Landscape Design - Landscape & Masonry Lisa Finch - Original Artwork European Architectural Supply - Windows Eric Roth Photography - Photography

This beautiful beach house is accented with a combination of Coronado Stone veneer products. The rustic blend of stone veneer shapes and sizes, along with the projects rich earthy hues allow the architect to seamlessly tie the interior and exterior spaces together. View more images at http://www.coronado.com

On the basement level is Cohen’s home office – which embraces the more industrial aesthetic of the surrounding building materials. The space is graced with natural light that trickles down through the home’s transparent layers, something unusual for a basement. Photo: Jim Bartsch

We had designed the Plantation Animal Hospital for Dr. Isom 20 years earlier. He loved the Florida Keys and he loved fishing, and was gradually turning responsibility for his practice over to his younger associates. His first impulse was for what he referred to as a "fishing shack" built mostly of wood. However, Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida during the design process, which was very sobering, and concrete became the wiser choice. Only the roof remained a wood heavy timber structure. Coastal codes there required elevating the living areas above hurricane tidal surge, so the idea was to locate the concrete columns on the outside and extending up to visually support only the roof, thereby lending a lighter, more graceful feeling to the heavy concrete part of the structure. Windows are dual jalousies with external wood slats for sun shading, privacy and security. The site was landscaped with local salt friendly plant material.

The Bolton-Schluter residence, located in the rural mountainous residential neighborhood of Topanga Canyon, has 2500 square feet of interior living space, with an additional 1650 square feet of exterior decks and stairs, plus garage. The wooded hillside lot is 75’ wide and 600’ deep with three large oaks that are protected by local ordinance. The garage sits on the relatively level ground adjacent to the street. The house itself “climbs” up the 40% slope upwards, achieving a 44’ elevation gain to the scenic views at the top. The design concept for the Bolton-Schluter residence combined a strong theoretical approach with the rigid building constraints of the area. The protected oak trees dictated the required angles of the stair, which, along with the natural angles of the contours on the site, and certain directional bearings in the landscape / horizon in the distance gave rise to a conceptual ordering system controlling the internal and external geometry of the house. AIA Honor Award

Simon Devitt
Deck - contemporary deck idea in Auckland

Located in prestigious LA begins with a site of rare natural beauty which is preserved and enhanced in a community plan that includes 20 acres of dedicated open space, with hundreds of mature hardwood trees, extensive trails and a five acre park which is matched by an extraordinary variety of residences that includes luxury townhomes and three distinct series of single family homes, all of which are to be tailored to your individual tastes. Whatever your lifestyle you will find the perfect fit at Goldenline Remodeling. Our philosophy is simple: To design and build the very best homes in the very best locations. We believe those homes should be personalized to your lifestyle needs and your own specific desires. That’s our semi-custom approach to home design.

Located in prestigious LA begins with a site of rare natural beauty which is preserved and enhanced in a community plan that includes 20 acres of dedicated open space, with hundreds of mature hardwood trees, extensive trails and a five acre park which is matched by an extraordinary variety of residences that includes luxury townhomes and three distinct series of single family homes, all of which are to be tailored to your individual tastes. Whatever your lifestyle you will find the perfect fit at Goldenline Remodeling. Our philosophy is simple: To design and build the very best homes in the very best locations. We believe those homes should be personalized to your lifestyle needs and your own specific desires. That’s our semi-custom approach to home design.

Located in prestigious LA begins with a site of rare natural beauty which is preserved and enhanced in a community plan that includes 20 acres of dedicated open space, with hundreds of mature hardwood trees, extensive trails and a five acre park which is matched by an extraordinary variety of residences that includes luxury townhomes and three distinct series of single family homes, all of which are to be tailored to your individual tastes. Whatever your lifestyle you will find the perfect fit at Goldenline Remodeling. Our philosophy is simple: To design and build the very best homes in the very best locations. We believe those homes should be personalized to your lifestyle needs and your own specific desires. That’s our semi-custom approach to home design.

Waystation is a new-build family home that replaces a dilapidated 1960’s modernist house in Kent. The existing house has some architectural merit but fails to respond to the family’s needs. The entrance level and bedrooms are disconnected from the living space which makes for torturous circulation and a lack of connection with the garden. After full evaluation, it has proved to be too expensive to adapt and repair the existing house. Starting from scratch gave us the opportunity to develop a detailed brief with our client, to create a warm and open family home that maximises the site’s potential and forms a meaningful connection to the garden. The design of the proposed house seeks to acknowledge the legacy of the existing with a clarity of form and elegant use of natural materials. The horizontal design respects the form and ethos of the existing house, with the timber cladding providing a warm and contemporary aesthetic. The upper and lower forms are proposed in a contrasting black render. The design concept seeks to create a building with a deliberately lightweight appearance which floats above the landscape and sits harmoniously in the wooded setting. The lower ground floor contains garage, entrance, guest rooms and ancillary spaces. The upper ground floor comprises the children’s bedrooms and the open plan living spaces which connect seamlessly to the outdoor terrace and garden. The master bedroom suite at first floor is orientated south and designed with an intimate terrace that enjoys panoramic views of the countryside. For the external spaces, the design intention is to create a sense of space and elegance, allowing light to penetrate the areas around the house but also to create a great sense of privacy and calm. Thus, architecture and landscape combine to create a place for the family to come together and enjoy. The house is scheduled to start on site late spring 2020.

This is an organic Lime Wash done with a true lime wash product as opposed to a brick mortar or concrete that is often seen on new houses. This product can be applied as a solid coating making the surface completely white, or can be applied and "washed off" in many artistic ways, as seen here. If you hate your brick or just want something unique this is a great option! Photo credit: Jeff Murrey

Nestled into a tree-covered hilltop in Fairfax CA this simple timber-framed house exploits what many have considered to be a very restrictive and constrained site too small to develop. The perimeter of the house follows exactly the site and its set back lines thus dictating the overall size and volume. The house was designed for a young couple as a starter home in this desirable area where they would normally be priced out. The strict budget influenced the design of standard off-the-shelf components and an easy and quick construction sequence minimalizing the build time. The house straddle’s a small brook in a ravine at the apex of a hairpin bend on an unincorporated road. Supported on eight concrete peers elevating the house to road level, the layout of the house is based on a simple twelve-foot grid, with an adjoining six-foot tapering sliver along the north-facing long edge, giving the overall footprint the shape of a blunt wedge. Accessed over a triangular bridge dictated by site lines, the entrance is via a covered porte cochere with a balcony above. The entranceway can be closed for security by means of a large sliding door of matching slatted wood. The entrance proper is via a stock sliding glass patio door to the main living space. The choice of sliding window is repeated throughout the building. In its current flexible configuration, the living space is a double-height experience, beyond which on the left centrally located is a spiral staircase leading to the bedroom and bathroom above. Both these rooms have built-in storage. Both bedrooms boast a double-height slopping ceiling; clerestory windows that give the building its distinctive character, and a balcony. On the ground floor beyond the spiral staircase is built-in and concealed fully equipped kitchen and open plan dining area, beyond which, externally and underneath one of the bedroom balconies is an outdoor bbq kitchen.