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

Photo: Lauren Andersen © 2018 Houzz
Kitchen - eclectic kitchen idea in San Francisco

**I. Spatial Composition & Architectural Volume** This interior operates on a strategy of framed extension, in which the room's perceived volume is borrowed from the garden beyond rather than asserted through internal grandeur. The composition is governed by a rigorous orthogonal discipline: a full-height sliding glazing system, set within a deep oak-lined reveal, functions as both aperture and proscenium, its slender mullions dividing the exterior into a triptych of vegetal planes. The generous depth of that reveal — expressed as a substantial threshold plinth and continuous jamb casing — reads less as trim than as tectonic gesture, giving weight and thickness to the enclosure and reinforcing the sense of a pavilion pressed against a green wall. To the left, a floor-to-ceiling pocketing door of book-matched, quarter-sawn oak establishes a monolithic vertical counterpoint, its recessed flush pull the only interruption of an otherwise uninflected plane; the shallow return of the wall beyond it creates a compressed entry sequence that releases into the primary volume. The flat, shadowless plaster ceiling maintains a neutral lid over the composition, while the furniture plan is deliberately low-slung and horizontal — a deep sectional set parallel to the glazing, a leather-topped ottoman, and a low occasional table — so that no element rises to compete with the sightline. Circulation is implied along the wall's edge, funnelling toward the terrace and its al fresco dining vignette, which acts as the room's terminal focal point and extends the interior axis outward. **II. Materiality, Color & Texture** The palette is a study in low-contrast tonal layering, calibrated within a narrow band of warm neutrals and animated almost entirely by the saturated chlorophyll green of the ivy screen. Rift-cut white oak, finished in a matte oil that reveals rather than glosses its medullary figure, provides the room's structural warmth — appearing in the joinery, the window surround, and the herringbone parquet, whose fine chevron rhythm introduces a subtle graphic pattern at foot level. Walls are treated in what appears to be a woven grasscloth or linen-effect wallcovering in a pale oatmeal tone, its faint horizontal striation catching raking light and lending textile softness to the perimeter. Against this, the seating is upholstered in a tightly woven, undyed linen-cotton blend with a biscuit-tufted seat platform, its slubbed irregularity a deliberate foil to the precision of the millwork. The cushion program provides the composition's only chromatic incident: an indigo-ground ikat or *kasuri* resist-dyed weave, with its blurred weft-broken banding, paired with a heavier blanket-stitched wool in glaucous blue-grey and buff stripes. Underfoot, a hand-knotted silk-and-wool rug in slate and mineral grey carries an attenuated ogee lattice, its lustrous pile providing cool relief beneath the warmer wood tones. The plinth-mounted travertine or reconstituted-stone planter — matte, porous, faintly chalky — and the honed grey stone paving beyond introduce lithic gravity, balancing the prevailing softness with a mineral edge. **III. Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Illumination here is almost entirely diurnal and indirect: north-oriented or hedge-filtered daylight arrives diffuse and green-cast, washing the space in a soft, even luminance that suppresses hard shadow and privileges texture over drama. The ivory sheer, hung on a discreet recessed track, tempers glare while retaining silhouette legibility, and the adjacent pinch-pleated overdrape in a taupe-bronze silk-blend — with its subtle vertical striation and slight sheen — offers the option of full blackout while contributing a note of drapery-weight formality. Artificial sources are conspicuously concealed; no decorative fixture interrupts the ceiling plane, implying a scheme of recessed low-glare downlights or perimeter cove washing designed to sustain the daytime ambience after dusk. The resulting atmosphere is one of composed reticence — quiet, tactile, and deeply oriented toward the garden. Stylistically, the project synthesises Japandi restraint (the pocketing timber plane, the shadow-gap detailing, the reverence for the framed view) with the material sensuality and drapery conventions of European Soft Modernism, yielding a warm minimalism in which luxury is communicated through joinery tolerance, textile hand, and the disciplined editing of the palette rather than through ornament or statement furniture. It is an interior conceived as a calm neutral ground — an armature for light, landscape, and the slow accretion of daily life.

Gorgeous master bath finished with Dal-Tile's Fabrique porcelain tile in the color Noir Linen polished. Tile size is 12"x24" installed in a brick joint pattern. The floor boasts underfloor heating on a timed thermostat.

**I. Spatial Composition & Architectural Volume** This is a galley-adjacent service zone — most likely a scullery or butler's pantry annexed to a primary kitchen — and its power derives from compression rather than expanse. The composition is organized along a single working wall that terminates abruptly in a full-height stainless volume, creating a deliberate collision of cabinetry rhythm and monolithic mass. The upper millwork establishes the governing geometry: a run of glazed-front wall cabinets with recessed shaker-profile stiles and rails, capped by a substantial crown assembly that reads as architectural cornice rather than applied trim. Within the second bay, the designer has inserted a period-correct plate rack with fluted vertical dividers and open glassware shelving, converting storage into ordered display and introducing a fine-grain vertical striation that counterpoints the broader panel field below. The base run answers with inset drawer fronts and applied-molding door panels, its cabinetry set on a shallow toe recess that lets the volume appear to float rather than plinth. The sightline is intentionally foreshortened: the eye travels the countertop plane eastward, is arrested by the refrigerator's tall stainless slab, then released through a sliver of hallway and door casing at the far right — a compressed reveal that implies circulation beyond and prevents the corridor from reading as a dead end. Ceiling height is inferred rather than shown, the cabinetry's soffit-scaled crown suggesting generous vertical proportion held in check by the room's narrow footprint. **II. Materiality, Color & Texture** The palette is a study in achromatic warmth, restrained to four principal materials and disciplined in its saturation. Cabinetry is finished in a soft greige-white — a putty-leaning off-white with faint green-grey undertone — applied in a low-sheen eggshell that absorbs rather than reflects, allowing the millwork profiles to be read through shadow rather than gloss. The backsplash is a honed marble subway field, laid in running bond with tight joints; its veining is delicate, feathered, and grey-toned, providing textural incident without pattern assertion. This continues seamlessly into the countertop, a thick marble slab with a squared eased edge and an integrated undermount trough sink, the material continuity from horizontal to vertical plane reinforcing the wall as a single stone-clad surface. Against this cool mineral field, the stainless steel refrigerator introduces an industrial register — brushed, directional, faintly grey-violet in its reflected light — while polished nickel hardware (bin pulls, cup pulls, knobs, and a wall-mounted bridge faucet with cross handles) supplies punctuating specular highlights at a consistent scale. The floor is the room's tonal anchor: white oak in a herringbone lay, fumed or grey-washed to a driftwood tone that reveals open grain and medullary ray figure. Small warm accents — a butcher-block cutting board with worn patina, amber glass bottles, a persimmon-toned bowl, the pale green of a champagne label — function as chromatic acupuncture within an otherwise desaturated field. **III. Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Illumination is layered and largely concealed. Ambient daylight enters obliquely from the left, raking across the marble backsplash at a low angle that mobilizes the honed surface's subtle relief and casts the cabinet door profiles into legible shadow. Undercabinet linear lighting washes the countertop and backsplash with a warm, low-kelvin pool, while the refrigerator's interior glazing performs as an unexpected internal lantern — a glowing vitrine that punctures the stainless slab and becomes the composition's focal luminance. This device is the image's most sophisticated gesture: it recasts a utilitarian appliance as an illuminated cabinet of curiosities, echoing the glass-front upper millwork on the opposite wall and completing a diagonal dialogue of lit transparency across the room. The resulting atmosphere is quiet, tempered, and quietly bourgeois — an interior of custodial calm rather than spectacle. Stylistically, the project synthesizes as a **contemporary Anglo-American scullery vernacular**: classical inset millwork and plate-rack joinery inherited from the pre-war service kitchen, reinterpreted through professional-grade stainless equipment, honed rather than polished stone, and a wire-brushed herringbone floor. Call it Refined Utilitarianism — a design position in which historical typology supplies the grammar, industrial hardware supplies the punctuation, and the near-monochrome palette allows craft, profile, and light to carry the entire expressive burden.

Before, during and after polished concrete floor in Estacada. Really transforms a garage conversion to living space into an easy care beautiful flooring treatment. Photos: Chris and Kris

Tucked away in the backwoods of Torch Lake, this home marries “rustic” with the sleek elegance of modern. The combination of wood, stone and metal textures embrace the charm of a classic farmhouse. Although this is not your average farmhouse. The home is outfitted with a high performing system that seamlessly works with the design and architecture. The tall ceilings and windows allow ample natural light into the main room. Spire Integrated Systems installed Lutron QS Wireless motorized shades paired with Hartmann & Forbes windowcovers to offer privacy and block harsh light. The custom 18′ windowcover’s woven natural fabric complements the organic esthetics of the room. The shades are artfully concealed in the millwork when not in use. Spire installed B&W in-ceiling speakers and Sonance invisible in-wall speakers to deliver ambient music that emanates throughout the space with no visual footprint. Spire also installed a Sonance Landscape Audio System so the homeowner can enjoy music outside. Each system is easily controlled using Savant. Spire personalized the settings to the homeowner’s preference making controlling the home efficient and convenient.

Mary Craven Photography
Inspiration for a transitional bathroom remodel in Nashville

Chris Golden
Inspiration for a transitional carpeted living room remodel in Phoenix with beige walls, a standard fireplace and a tile fireplace

**I. Spatial Composition & Architectural Volume** This powder room operates as a compressed, processional vestibule — a jewel-box volume whose narrowness is deliberately weaponized to intensify the encounter with a single focal event. The plan reads as a tight rectilinear corridor, entered obliquely past a pivoting sculptural door leaf at the left foreground, with the sightline funnelling directly to a recessed alcove at the terminal wall. That alcove is the compositional engine of the room: a deep, orthogonal reveal framed in slender blackened-metal profiles, within which a monolithic marble vanity cantilevers as a full-width plinth, its shadow-gap plinth detail dissolving the mass into apparent levitation. The full-height glazed screens flanking both side walls — divided into a disciplined grid of stile-and-rail metal mullions above a stone dado — introduce a Miesian rhythm of verticals that visually widen the space while preserving enclosure. Above, a crisp plaster soffit with a razor-thin perimeter reveal caps the volume, while the mullion grid's continuation across the ceiling plane and door surround creates a cage-like armature, an architectural drawing rendered in three dimensions. The suspended, wall-hung water closet at left is deliberately subordinated, half-concealed by the stone return, ensuring the axial procession terminates not on plumbing but on art. **II. Materiality, Color & Texture** The material palette is orchestrated as a controlled dialogue between the geologic, the vegetal, and the metallic. Book-matched Calacatta Viola — or a closely related Paonazzo — sheathes the dado and vanity in slabs whose oxblood, umber, and graphite veining reads as gestural brushwork, its cool bone-white ground counterweighted by the warm ferrous rust of its fissures; the veining on the right-hand wall is sequenced to cascade, treating stone as a continuous painterly field rather than a modular cladding. Against this, the foreground door presents a deeply carved, three-dimensional sculpted timber relief in a mid-tone oak or walnut, its undulating, plaited chevron texture introducing a haptic, almost textile-like tactility that provides the composition's most overtly artisanal register. The glazed screens deploy reeded or fluted glass in a smoky sage-olive cast, their striations diffusing and abstracting whatever lies beyond into vertical striae of light — a translucent counterpoint to the opacity of stone and wood. Blackened bronze or patinated steel mullions supply the graphic scaffolding, while unlacquered brass appears as accent punctuation: the gooseneck spout with exposed swivel collar, and, most emphatically, the flame-patinated bronze oval of the mirror frame, whose molten amber bloom is the single high-saturation event in an otherwise desaturated envelope of greys, greiges, and bone. Underfoot, chevron-laid oak parquet in a soft tobacco stain grounds the palette and repeats the door's zigzag geometry at a domestic scale. **III. Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Lighting is handled with theatrical restraint and a distinctly museological logic. The terminal alcove is backlit by a full-height plane of sheer, pinch-pleated linen sheers washed with daylight — an ambiguous, screened luminance that functions as a lightbox, silhouetting the mirror and reading as a window without conceding a view. Concealed cove or perimeter LED at the soffit reveal lifts the ceiling and grazes the plaster, while the reeded glass side screens capture and refract borrowed light along their flutes, producing a soft vertical shimmer that keeps the narrow volume from collapsing into gloom. The lower register is intentionally darker, the recessed shadow gap beneath the vanity and the bronze toe detail anchoring the composition in a low-key, chiaroscuro base. The atmosphere is hushed, contemplative, and faintly ecclesiastical — the alcove operating as a reredos, the framed portrait glimpsed in the mirror's reflection functioning as an unexpected, wry apparition that injects narrative and humor into an otherwise austere scheme. Stylistically, the room synthesizes into what might be termed *Tactile Luxe Modernism* or Refined Warm Modernism: the structural clarity and metal-gridded transparency of mid-century International Style, tempered by Italian post-war sensuality in the bronze and marble, and finally humanized by contemporary craft-forward texture. The result is a space of considerable discipline that nonetheless privileges touch, patina, and surprise over minimalist abstinence.

Custom leaded glass panel used for privacy and charm in small window of front entry door. Glass: clear textured glass (granite, 1/16" reed, beveled glue chip) and beveled glass Lead: 3/16" rounded Size: 1 @ ~8" x 18" x 1/4" thick *This product was commissioned and made-to-order. If you're interested in this design, let's chat! We can recreate it for you to your specified dimensions, or we can discuss any design changes you'd like, as well as additional options for materials (glass texture, color, lead size, etc.). Reach out to hello@legacyglass.com to get started!

## Spatial Composition & Architectural Volume This is a kitchen conceived less as a service zone than as a precisely calibrated architectural volume, resolved through an L-configuration of full-height cabinetry that terminates against a monolithic island set on an intentional diagonal to the orthogonal grid of the herringbone flooring. The island's waterfall treatment — a slab returning to the floor in a single unbroken plane — functions as both a peninsular counter and a piece of quasi-sculptural infrastructure, its overhang generating a shallow banquette-adjacent seating zone without resorting to a conventional breakfast bar. Above, a coffered soffit executed in flush drywall with a continuous cove-lit reveal establishes a datum line that both compresses and defines the working core, while the adjacent tray ceiling reads as a distinct volume, spatially decoupling the kitchen from the living room beyond. That threshold is the composition's most disciplined gesture: a wide cased opening framed in mitered rift-cut oak paneling, its architrave articulated as a shadow-gapped reveal rather than applied trim, drawing a deep enfilade sightline through to the window wall, its Roman shades, and the mid-rise cityscape beyond. Millwork here performs structurally as well as visually — the oak-clad pilasters and the fluted, hand-carved textural panel at right operate as pseudo-columnar elements, organizing the plan into legible bays. ## Materiality, Color & Texture The palette is constructed on a deliberate dialectic between two wood registers. The envelope employs a pale, quarter-sawn white oak with a honeyed, faintly amber undertone, its figure suppressed and its finish matte, functioning as a luminous neutral ground. Against this, the cabinetry deploys a deeply fumed or ebonized ash — likely a heavily lacquered, open-grain veneer — where the cathedral figuring is exaggerated into near-graphic striation and the high-gloss sheen produces a lacquered, almost Art Deco lustre. This contrast of value (blonde against bitter chocolate) and of sheen (matte against specular) is the project's principal tension. Mediating between them is the stone: a white quartzite or dolomitic marble with soft grey-taupe veining and a distinctly warm, cream-adjacent field, book-matched across the full-height backsplash and repeated on the island slab, its subtly honed surface refusing the glare of a polished finish. Metallic accents are restrained and consistently warm — satin brass on the pendant canopies and stool footrails, blackened bronze on the hardware, glazing frames, and the stools' slender tubular frames. Textiles introduce a low-frequency counterpoint: nubby bouclé upholstery on the sectional, a striated woven sheer at left, ikat-patterned cushions, and a tonal blue-grey geometric rug that supplies the only chromatic departure from the room's ochre-to-espresso spectrum. ## Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile The lighting scheme is layered with unusual rigor. Daylight is admitted obliquely, filtered through the plaid-toned Roman shades of the adjacent living room, so the kitchen receives it secondhand — soft, directional, and already warmed. Artificial light works in three tiers: the recessed cove uplighting that grazes the soffit and dissolves the ceiling's edges; concealed under-cabinet illumination that renders the stone backsplash as a glowing plane; and the pair of spun-brass disc pendants suspended on slender blackened stems, whose downward-facing diffusers deliver a controlled pool of task light while their polished undersides register as small suns in the composition. The absence of visible downlight clutter is notable and disciplined. The resulting atmosphere is enveloping and low-glare — cosseting rather than clinical — with a distinctly residential, almost salon-like decorum reinforced by the framed genre painting hung casually on the oak paneling, a curatorial gesture that domesticates the kitchen decisively. Stylistically, the project reads as **Warm Modernist Luxe**, drawing on the vocabulary of high-craft European cabinetry and mid-century Milanese interiors: the grain-forward veneers, brass discs, and slender bronze seating carry a whisper of 1970s Italian sophistication, while the flush detailing, shadow-gap reveals, and rigorous suppression of ornament situate it firmly in contemporary practice. It is tailored rather than austere — a demonstration that minimalist discipline and material sensuality need not be adversaries.

**Paragraph 1: Spatial Composition & Architectural Volume** This dressing vestibule is an exercise in the choreography of compression and release — a narrow processional corridor that opens onto a shallow window alcove, terminating the sightline in a single, deliberately staged tableau. The plan is organized between two parallel planes of full-height joinery: at left, a monumental run of flush-faced wardrobe doors executed in bespoke decorative panelling, and at right, a mirror-clad pier whose reflective face doubles the room's apparent width and recapitulates the window, the bench, and the herringbone floor in a quiet trompe-l'oeil. The millwork is detailed with an admirable restraint — reveal-shadow gaps rather than architraves, concealed pivot hinges, and slim bronze-toned frames that read as drawn lines rather than mouldings. Overhead, a stepped soffit and recessed cornice detail lower the datum at the corridor, then release into the fuller ceiling height of the alcove; the effect is subtly perspectival, drawing the eye toward the luminous aperture. The punched window, generously reveal-deep and set within a wide oak surround, functions less as a view and more as a light well, its frosted glazing dissolving the exterior into pure illuminated field. The upholstered bench, centered beneath it and flanked casually by a pair of double-monk shoes, provides the anthropometric anchor — a note of inhabited scale that keeps the geometry from tipping into abstraction. **Paragraph 2: Materiality, Color & Texture** The palette operates within an exceptionally disciplined tonal register — a graduated field of oyster, greige, bone, and pale putty, all sharing a warm mineral undertone that prevents the achromatic scheme from turning cold. The hero surface is undoubtedly the wardrobe fronts: a hand-applied, gesso-like plaster or lacquered artisanal finish, its brushed and troweled passages bearing faint calligraphic incisions and pinpricked stitch-like perforations, evoking a Japanese ink study or an aged fresco fragment. Against this painterly softness, the joinery frames and window casings deliver rift-sawn oak with a fine, linear grain, while the perimeter walls are dressed in a subtly striated textile or grasscloth wallcovering punctuated by small inlaid tesserae — a low-frequency rhythm that reads as texture at distance and as craft detail at proximity. Hardware provides the scheme's only true contrast: elongated blackened-bronze pulls, rectilinear and unornamented, act as punctuation marks on the pale field. Metals are otherwise handled with restraint — satin brass sabots capping the bench legs, an unlacquered brass sconce armature — introducing warmth without glitter. Underfoot, the chevron-laid oak parquet supplies directional energy, softened by a plush viscose or silk-blend rug whose sheen shifts from pearl to shadow. The tactile logic is one of graduated softness: matte plaster against silk pile, honed timber against brushed textile, with mirror as the single hard, cool interruption. **Paragraph 3: Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Natural light is the primary compositional instrument here, and it has been diffused rather than admitted — the obscured glazing and half-drawn linen Roman shade convert daylight into a soft, north-facing luminous plane, evenly modelling the plaster and revealing its topography in raking gradients. This ambient wash is calibrated against a single decorative gesture: a wall-mounted sconce in alabaster or hand-formed opaline glass, its warm amber core providing the room's only chromatic accent and a welcome note of imperfection against the otherwise machined precision. Architectural lighting is entirely concealed — no downlight apertures interrupt the ceiling plane — reinforcing the sense that illumination emanates from the surfaces themselves. The resulting atmosphere is contemplative, hushed, almost sacral: a threshold space treated with the gravity of a chapel narthex. Stylistically, the project sits at the confluence of Soft Minimalism and contemporary Parisian couture interiors — the reductive planarity and monochromatic discipline of the former married to the artisanal, hand-wrought materiality and bronze detailing associated with the latter, with a distinctly Japandi sensibility in its reverence for wabi-sabi surface irregularity and asymmetric compositional balance. It is a scheme that achieves luxury not through ornament or contrast but through the sustained rigour of tonal control, the quality of the hand in its finishes, and the confidence to leave the volume largely empty.

Custom Surface Solutions (www.css-tile.com) - Owner Craig Thompson (512) 430-1215. This project shows new 12 x 24 tile installed vertically with offset layout pattern on wall and floor. Includes shower box with linear glass accent tile back and vertical glass accent band. Tile edges are finished with Schluter Jolly satin aluminum profile edge trim.

Example of a 1950s home design design in Seattle

Example of a mid-sized transitional enclosed carpeted and beige floor home theater design in Salt Lake City with gray walls and a wall-mounted tv

Landscape & Pool Design: Root Design Company Photo credits: Jessica Carr
Design ideas for a mediterranean landscaping in Austin.

The ground floor volumes wrapped in an elongated hand-fired brick, emphasizing the horizontality of the architecture that lays solidly on the land. (Photography by: Matthew Millman)

This remodeled bedroom was upgraded to an elegant and sophisticated master retreat. Using metallic plasters and various techniques of application with this beautiful repeat stencil pattern, this accent wall is a stunning focal feature of this master bedroom. Copyright © 2016 The Artists Hands