This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

Originally slated for demolition, this 1925 Tudor in Mission Hills was rescued and renovated, welcoming it into the 21st century with a complete gut of the interior and extensive rework of the grounds. Driven by 4 guiding words derived from Tudor design language—Obscure, Gilt, Directional, and Reveal—and after a careful study of photos from the original home, we crafted a sensitive, reverential, and gloriously warm home ready to welcome all who enter. Exterior lighting by Flambeaux. Exterior pavers are Phenix Fleuri marble. Exterior paint colors are SW 7570 Egret White and SW 7020 Black Fox. Doors and windows by Marvin. Custom walnut front door.

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

While this design is technically a duplex, it has the feeling of two separate houses: both follow the same design language but each frontage is distinct, as opposed to the more common mirror-image duplex design. In turn, this orientation gives each home its own unique floorplan, maximising privacy, ventilation and natural daylight. Upon entering, one is drawn by the light down the long hall to the garden which lights up the ground floor. Your eye is also attracted to the shapes and lines created by the contemporary stairway. Meals with family and friends are a priority for this client and each home has all 4 bedrooms upstairs, with the ground floor dedicated to open-plan living. This unrestricted space further promotes the light and airy atmosphere. The street-corner duplex has at the back a large garage that faces the house and is fully open to the courtyard garden – this space doubles as a substantial undercover entertaining area. The other house also has guests spilling outside, with its alfresco dining verandah and plunge pool. PROJECT Two duplex houses, each having: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, garage and for one house a swimming pool Chaleyer Street, Rose Bay Woollahra Municipal Council jurisdiction Completed Photography: BLAQ Projects

Subsequent additions are covered with living green walls to deemphasize stylistic conflicts imposed on a 1940’s Tudor and become backdrop surrounding a kitchen addition. On the interior, further added architectural inconsistencies are edited away, and the language of the Tudor’s original reclaimed integrity is referenced for the addition. Sympathetic to the home, windows and doors remain untrimmed and stark plaster walls contrast the original black metal windows. Sharp black elements contrast fields of white. With a ceiling pitch matching the existing and chiseled dormers, a stark ceiling hovers over the kitchen space referencing the existing homes plaster walls. Grid members in windows and on saw scored paneled walls and cabinetry mirror the machine age windows as do exposed steel beams. The exaggerated white field is pierced by an equally exaggerated 13 foot black steel tower that references the existing homes steel door and window members. Glass shelves in the tower further the window parallel. Even though it held enough dinner and glassware for eight, its thin members and transparent shelves defy its massive nature, allow light to flow through it and afford the kitchen open views and the feeling of continuous space. The full glass at the end of the kitchen reveres a grouping of 50 year old Hemlocks. At the opposite end, a window close to the peak looks up to a green roof.

This vintage-inspired faucet handle brings a touch of nostalgia to the Lake Forest master bathroom, proving that even the smallest elements can carry immense design weight. The polished chrome surface gleams against the marble countertop, highlighting the handle's elegant silhouette. The ceramic insert marked "COLD" is a nod to traditional European bathroom fittings, while the robust construction ensures modern-day performance. The handle's proportions and shape were carefully chosen to fit comfortably in hand while maintaining a refined look. By matching this handle style throughout the bathroom, we created a harmonious visual language that blends traditional charm with transitional sophistication — a design balance that defines this remodel.

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company

Coates Design Architects Seattle Lara Swimmer Photography Fairbank Construction
Mid-sized contemporary brown two-story wood house exterior idea in Seattle with a shed roof and a metal roof

We used: Custom cherry cabinetry in Arts & Crafts Shaker style by Kabinart in Boulder and Espresso stains. Liberty Hardware Venetian bronze 1-1/2" cabinet knobs. KitchenAid Architect II Series 22 CF counter-depth French door refrigerator. KitchenAid Architect Series II 27" convection single wall oven. KitchenAid 36" 6-burner dual fuel freestanding commercial-style range. KitchenAid Architect II Series 24" dishwasher. Sharp Insight Pro Series 24" built-in microwave drawer (Model #KB6524PS). Crystorama Solaris 12" wide pendant lights in English bronze. Granite countertops in Brown Fantasy. 3"x6" polished marble backsplash. Paint colors: Walls: Glidden Silver Cloud 30YY 63/024 Ceilings/Trims/Doors: Glidden Swan White GLC23 Robert B. Narod Photography

Nestled in a wooded area in the Pacific Northwest, the 1800 sf Passive Cedar Haus was built as a retirement home. The Artisans Group designed the layout of the home, mindful of aging in place, and working to ensure that the home blended in with the surrounding natural beauty. The project meets a complex program, with an unheated sleeping porch for a master bedroom, a screened porch, a 600 sf caretakers apartment/mother in law unit, large wood shop, plus a two car carport. The home seamlessly integrates a floating cedar tongue and groove roof with large sheltering overhangs, clerestory windows, and language of cedar slats for privacy screens and doors inside and out. The warm, natural materials of wood and cork for the interior palette are punctuated by lively accents and stunning fixtures. This ultra energy efficient home relies on extremely high levels of insulation, air-tight detailing and construction, and the implementation of high performance, custom made European windows and doors by Zola Windows. Zola’s ThermoPlus Clad line, which boasts R-11 triple glazing and is thermally broken with a layer of patented German Purenit®, was selected for the project. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the main living area, gives an expansive view of the surrounding Northwest forest. The tops of these windows reveal the interior cedar clad and the up-swept soffits on the home’s exterior, creating a floating ceiling effect. Slatted spruce wood fly-overs break up the vertical areas of the great room and define separate areas that would otherwise feel like an overwhelmingly expansive space. Photography by: Cheryl Ramsay of Ramsay Photography

This recently built Bethesda home features two distinctive staircases that share a cohesive design language. The main staircase pairs natural wood treads with sleek steel horizontal rods, creating clean lines. The black wood newels and handrail create striking contrast with the lighter details. A custom spiral staircase echoes this aesthetic with jet-black metal triangular frames supporting natural wood treads. The geometric structure winds upward, maintaining the same material palette of warm wood and dark metal found throughout the home's vertical connections. 1976-2026 © Century Stair Company