Download our free ebook, Creating the Ideal Kitchen. DOWNLOAD NOW As with most projects, it all started with the kitchen layout. The home owners came to us wanting to upgrade their kitchen and overall aesthetic in their suburban home, with a combination of fresh paint, updated finishes, and improved flow for more ease when doing everyday activities. A monochromatic, earth-toned palette left the kitchen feeling uninspired. It lacked the brightness they wanted from their space. An eat-in table underutilized the available square footage. The butler’s pantry was out of the way and hard to access, and the dining room felt detached from the kitchen. Lead Designer, Stephanie Cole, saw an improved layout for the spaces that were no longer working for this family. By eliminating an existing wall between the kitchen and dining room, and relocating the bar area to the dining room, we opened up the kitchen, providing all the space we needed to create a dreamy and functional layout. A new perimeter configuration promoted circulation while also making space for a large and functional island loaded with seating – a must for any family. Because an island that isn’t big enough for everyone (and a few more) is a recipe for disaster. The light white cabinetry is fresh and contrasts with the deeper tones in the wood flooring, creating a modern aesthetic that is elevated, yet approachable for everyday living. With better flow as the overarching goal, we made some structural changes too. To remove a bottleneck in the entryway, we angled one of the dining room walls to create more natural separation between rooms and facilitate ease of movement throughout the large space. At The Kitchen Studio, we believe a well-designed kitchen uses every square inch to the fullest. By starting from scratch, it was possible to rethink the entire kitchen layout and design the space according to how it is used, because the kitchen shouldn’t make it harder to feed the family. A new location for the existing range, flanked by a new column refrigerator and freezer on each side, worked to anchor the space. The very large and very spacious island (a dream island if we do say so ourselves) now houses the primary sink and provides ample space for food prep and family gathering. The new kitchen table and coordinating banquette seating provide a cozy nook for quick breakfasts before school or work, and evening homework sessions. Elegant gold details catch the natural light, elevating the aesthetic. The dining room was transformed into one of this client’s favorite spaces and we couldn’t agree more. We saw an opportunity to give the dining room a more distinguished identity by closing off the entrance from the foyer. The relocated wet bar enhances the sophisticated vibe of this gathering space, complete with beautiful antique mirror tiles and open shelving encased by moody built-in cabinets. Updated furnishings add warmth. A rich walnut table is paired with custom chairs in a muted coral fabric. The large, transitional chandelier grounds the room, pairing beautifully with the gold finishes prevalent in the faucet and cabinet hardware. Linen-inspired wallpaper and cream-toned window treatments add to the glamorous feel of this entertainment space. There is no way around it. The laundry room was cramped. The large washer and dryer blocked access to the sink and left little room for the space to serve its other essential function – as a mudroom. Because we reworked the kitchen layout to create more space overall, we could rethink the mudroom too – an essential for any busy family. The first step was moving the washer and dryer to an existing area on the second floor, where most of the family’s laundry lives (no one wants to carry laundry up and down the stairs if they don’t have to anyway). This is a more functional solution and opened up the space for all the mudroom necessities – including the existing kitchen refrigerator, loads of built-in cubbies, and a bench. It’s hard to not fall in love with every detail of a new space, especially when it serves your day-to-day life. But that doesn’t mean the clients didn’t have their favorite features they use on the daily. This remodel was focused largely on function with a new kitchen layout. And it’s the functional features that have the biggest impact. The large island provides much needed workspace in the kitchen and is a spot where everyone gathers together – it grounds the space and the family. And the custom counter stools are the icing on the cake. The nearby mudroom has everything their previous space was lacking – ample storage, space for everyone’s essentials, and the beloved cement floor tiles that are both durable and artistic.

The beautiful Westside of Santa Cruz is known for surfing, beaches and homes with small lots. Our main project goal was to maximize outdoor space and create additional rooms that would enlarge the overall living space in this cottage just steps from the beach. Large family gatherings, lots of grandkids and a few dogs inspired a walkable groundcover "lawn". We chose a light colored flagstone for the patio to contrast with the blue home. A long wall serves the dual purpose of additional seating and containing tall, thin plants that create privacy and a sense of enclosure. Plantings provide year-round color in primarily blues and yellows, and require very little water. With our perfect climate, nobody wants to stay indoors, and now this family is utilizing their space to the fullest extent!

The beautiful Westside of Santa Cruz is known for surfing, beaches and homes with small lots. Our main project goal was to maximize outdoor space and create additional rooms that would enlarge the overall living space in this cottage just steps from the beach. Large family gatherings, lots of grandkids and a few dogs inspired a walkable groundcover "lawn". We chose a light colored flagstone for the patio to contrast with the blue home. A long wall serves the dual purpose of additional seating and containing tall, thin plants that create privacy and a sense of enclosure. Plantings provide year-round color in primarily blues and yellows, and require very little water. With our perfect climate, nobody wants to stay indoors, and now this family is utilizing their space to the fullest extent!

To facilitate the builder's desire to create a successful model home in this large site development with expansive natural preserves, this design creates a sense of presence far greater than its actual size. This was accomplished by a wide yet shallow layout that allows most rooms to look out to rear of home and preserve views beyond. Designed with a West Indies flavor, this thoroughly modern home's layout flows seamlessly from space to space. Each room is bright with lots of natural light, creating a home that takes fullest potential of this unique site. An ARDA for Model Home Design goes to The Stater Group, Inc. Designer: The Sater Group, Inc. From: Bonita Springs, Florida

Luxury – Prestige – Status KEY FEATURES Hand Made in Europe Hand-Made by 3rd. generation of Aydin family. Premium Quality Hand lined bottom Hand stitching 100% genuine cowhide leather European (Balkan) breed animals Each product is BRANDED with serial number and Craftsmanship seal. Hides used for making Patchworks are sourced ethically and humanely and 100% as byproduct of meat production Animals are free-range raised, sustainable sourced mainly on mountain pastures of Eastern Europe. Animal skins are endemic to breeds specific for Eastern European region. Skins ARE NOT processed by mass processing facility, but rather family owned business with "Old Craft" certificate. This means that such business falls in "Traditional" category of business. All skins are hand processed using solutions with the P.H value of drinking water. Skins are processed in small batches, usually 5-10 at the time, in order for skin to preserve, to the greatest extend, its natural distinctions and quality. NOTE: The photo on this page represents design and style of this rug and IT IS AN IMAGE OF ACTUAL product you will receive. All rug sizes are approximate. Due to the difference of monitor colors, some rug colors may vary slightly. NOTE: Few products may contain some natural flaws due to conditions inherent to natural animal products (scratches, insect bites, wrinkles, cuts, etc.) that will be discretely repaired. Please note that we do not wedge our cowhides but we rather discretely stitch and repair. Such flaws are acceptable for this type of product, since it represents the life of the animal to the fullest possible extent.

In an ironic twist of terminology, the Gutterball Dining table has become CounterEv's "Perfect Game". Industrial Green to the fullest extent, this rock-steady table features blackened steel on all four sides combined with the deep, organic grain of our signature Heart Pine. Propped up with the only support that could match the historic significance of reclaimed bowling alley wood, the I-beam. The perfect dining, conference or chef's table when you want to show your Green with a little grit.

Clients that relocated from NYC fell in love with this home but wanted to update the kitchen to reflect their love of cooking. Using that mandate, the designer maximized both storage and countertops through clever space planning to utilize the existing perimeter to the fullest. The resulting space is a classic white kitchen with soft blue accents in the window treatments and seating. The main marble island was designed to maximize storage and counter surface with the second island done in walnut to match the butler’s pantry. The soft white cabinetry has a custom, brush-stroke finish with unlacquered brass hardware sourced from England. The custom hood and stainless steel backsplash with a warming shelf give the kitchen a professional look and are complemented by the SubZero glass front refrigerator and Wolf range. An upside-down edge detail on the countertops adds surface area, while interior lighting in the display cabinetry highlights dishes and serving pieces. The kitchen shines with unlacquered brass hardware and accents that patinas as it matures, but the crowning glory is the custom pot rack and light fixture by Ann-Morris that illuminates the room.

This home is a great example of longevity, because it embodies the idea in its fullest sense. Like all of our homes, it’s designed for aging in place, with tons of accessibility upgrades–including an elevator–so that the homeowner can live out all of his days in the comfort of his own home.

KEY FEATURES • Hand Made in Europe • Hand-Made by 3rd. generation of Aydin family. • Premium Quality • Hand lined bottom • Hand stitching • 100% genuine cowhide leather • European (Balkan) breed animals • Each product is BRANDED with serial number and Craftsmanship seal. • Hides used for making Patchworks are sourced ethically and humanely and 100% as byproduct of meat production • Animals are free-range raised, sustainable sourced mainly on mountain pastures of Eastern Europe. • Animal skins are endemic to breeds specific for Eastern European region. • Skins ARE NOT processed by mass processing facility, but rather family owned business with "Old Craft" certificate. This means that such business falls in "tradition" category of business, since third family generation takes care of business. • All skins are hand processed using solutions with the P.H value of drinking water (7)! We have been assured into that by being present inside the workshop during skin processing • Skins are processed in small batches, usually 5-10 at the time, in order for skin to preserve, to the greatest extend, its natural distinctions and quality. • NOTE: The photo on this page represents design and style of this rug and IT IS AN IMAGE OF ACTUAL product you will receive. All rug sizes are approximate. Due to the difference of monitor colors, some rug colors may vary slightly. • NOTE: Few products may contain some natural flaws due to conditions inherent to natural animal products (scratches, insect bites, wrinkles, cuts, etc.) that will be discretely repaired. Please note that we do not wedge our cowhides but we rather discretely stitch and repair. Such flaws are acceptable for this type of product, since it represents the life of the animal to the fullest possible extent. SQ21

*Spatial Composition & Architectural Volume** This terrace operates as an outdoor room in the fullest architectural sense: a discrete volume carved from the open air of the upper Manhattan skyline, its perimeter defined not by masonry but by a disciplined green architecture of clipped boxwood parterre hedging and multi-stemmed dogwood standards. The plan is organized on a clear axial logic — the rectilinear dining table sits centered on the sightline that threads between the flanking specimen trees and terminates in the middle distance on the Central Park tree canopy and the Columbus Circle towers beyond. That deliberate framing device is the composition's essential move: the trees function as proscenium, the hedge line as a low balustrade wall, and the powder-coated metal railing as a nearly dematerialized threshold, so the borrowed landscape is enlisted as the room's fourth elevation. Vertical enclosure is calibrated in three tiers — ground-plane ivy at ankle height, hedge and planter coping at seated eye level, and the airy tracery of tree canopy overhead — producing a ceiling plane implied rather than built, dappled and permeable. To the left, the load-bearing buff brick of the building's flank grounds the scheme with genuine architectural mass and reads as a masonry pilaster anchoring an otherwise open-sided plan, while at right a low stone-topped service console with recessed pull hardware and a monumental orb planter provides an asymmetrical counterweight, terminating circulation and articulating a secondary zone without interrupting flow. Large-format square paving, laid in a regular grid, provides the module against which all furniture placement is measured. **Materiality, Color & Texture** The material palette is restrained to a narrow tonal band of warm neutrals, allowing chlorophyll green to carry the scheme's entire chromatic charge. Underfoot, honed grey-taupe stone pavers offer a matte, slightly granular surface with a cool undertone; adjacent, the brick wall introduces a sandy, oatmeal-toned masonry with visible mortar coursing whose horizontality and faint striation supply the composition's only decorative pattern. Furniture is executed in a matte white or bone powder-coated aluminum frame with woven cord or resin-strap seat backs — an open basketweave that reads as textile rather than metal and softens the geometry with a hand-crafted grain. Cushions in pale greige linen-weave add a further degree of tactile compliance. Planters are dark bronze-toned metal, deliberately recessive so that mass reads as foliage rather than container, while the pale cast-stone orb planter introduces a sculptural, slightly chalky, faceted surface that catches light like unglazed ceramic. The horticultural texture work is the true material sophistication here: the tight, fine-leaved matte density of boxwood set against the broad, glossy, lacquer-like foliage of the ivy, and both played against the dogwoods' larger leaves already turning bronze, oxblood, and citron at the edges. The single note of saturation — a low, tightly massed arrangement of coral, apricot, and chartreuse blooms in a white cachepot — functions as a deliberate chromatic accent, keyed precisely to the autumnal leaf-turn overhead. **Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Natural light is the primary design instrument. The photograph captures a high, diffuse, slightly overexposed sky that renders the skyline in soft atmospheric perspective while raking light filters through the canopy to scatter mobile dappling across the paving — a chiaroscuro that animates an otherwise static geometry and shifts the room's character hourly. Artificial lighting is intentionally understated and architectural in intent: a suspended conical pendant in dark matte metal, hung at the right beneath the canopy, signals evening use and provides a small, precise silhouette against the ivy screen, while low-level integrated fixtures within planters and hedging would supply the subdued wash appropriate to a terrace that must never compete with the ambient glow of the city. The resulting atmosphere is one of considered seclusion — a green-walled cloister suspended above the metropolis, contemplative rather than performative. Stylistically, the project reads as Soft Minimalism in dialogue with a distinctly European, formal-garden discipline: the axial planning, clipped topiary, and standard-trained trees derive from classical parterre tradition, but they are executed with contemporary restraint — no ornament, no historicist detail, a single furniture gesture, a monochrome envelope. The synthesis might be termed Tailored Naturalism: an aesthetic in which rigorous geometry and a near-silent material palette exist precisely to give primacy to living texture, seasonal change, and the framed view.

This home is a great example of longevity, because it embodies the idea in its fullest sense. Like all of our homes, it’s designed for aging in place, with tons of accessibility upgrades–including an elevator–so that the homeowner can live out all of his days in the comfort of his own home.

When the sun goes down the fun is just beginning…if you have an exquisitely crafted backyard get-away like this one. This is–without a doubt–an ideal backyard for those who live life to the fullest by living inside-out. The strategically placed fire feature presents an open invitation for a cozy conversation. While the serene water feature lulls you past the cares of the day.

Living Room Corner Vignette - Glowing corner marked with an extraordinary color painting adjacent to an emotionally lit display cabinet showing vessels and objects to their fullest extent.

All sides of the design were detailed to the fullest as you can see this home from 360 degrees through out the neighborhood. There is also a detached 2-car garage.

This home is a great example of longevity, because it embodies the idea in its fullest sense. Like all of our homes, it’s designed for aging in place, with tons of accessibility upgrades–including an elevator–so that the homeowner can live out all of his days in the comfort of his own home.

There are many lighting rules which apply to the conceptual plan. Smaller parcels diminish light glare and pollution for the neighbors. Overuse of horizontal fixture types creates a landing strip appearance. The lighting design should have no dark holes. There should be lighting connectivity and composition throughout the design. Equal brightness of focal points surrounding architectural elements needs to be considered. Brightness levels need to be illuminated with connecting lower levels of illumination and stay underneath dark sky limits. The points of view need to be identified. These, and other lighting conceptual concerns, are presented and discussed individually in an effort to establish a master lighting plan for the property. This lighting plan can be implemented in phases do to budget, time constraints, and desires of the homeowner. The landscape lighting master plan brings the landscape plan to the fullest 8 seasons, 4 seasons both day and night.

Explore this revitalized backyard oasis in Washington, DC, where overgrown grass, weeds, and greenery once dominated the space. Faced with the challenge of maximizing every inch in this limited area, our goal was to reclaim and transform. The result: a thoughtful design featuring a custom fence for privacy and aesthetics, a space-saving bike shed, and a cozy bench surrounded by mosquito-repellent plants. Witness the metamorphosis of this once-overgrown haven into a harmonious blend of functionality and style—a transformed retreat where space is utilized to its fullest potential.

Miller Landscape Architecture is a team of dynamic women who share a love for the land and creative collaboration. Our decades of experience in landscape construction as well as design is a unique combination of technical expertise within one studio. We have both an eye for the details and the know-how for artfully bringing complex projects to life. Challenging Bay Area hillsides: game on! It is our joy to design with you and nature to create regenerative spaces, helping people live their lives to the fullest.

Pro-Land was hired to manage and construct this secluded backyard in the core of Toronto. Working in conjunction with multiple trades and Eden Tree Design Inc., we were able to create this modern space, utilizing every corner of the property to it's fullest potential. Landscape Design: Eden Tree Design Inc. Photographer: McNeill Photography