Kitchen island

All of the door and cabinet hardware, lighting, appliances, plumbing, and accessories are black to create consistent pops of depth and definition throughout the interior.

Lead architect, Tom Lenchek, opted for simple forms and materials that direct attention outwards, towards the cabin's natural surroundings.

“Using only wood to form a cabinet results in artistic moments. Diagonals read as decorative, but these strong triangles are necessary when you’re not using plywood,” Caleb says. “It’s pure joy to use the kitchen, knowing that all parts of it are built with meaning and without compromise.

The rebuilt “Idea House,” designed by Holly Freres and David Horning of JHL design. The driveway is permeable to encourage good drainage: crushed granite gravel is installed over a stabilization mat. James Hardie exterior siding is painted in Benjamin Moore ‘White Dove,’ with reclaimed wood used for the entry and garage.

He made the shelving, cabinets, and shroud in the kitchen from a felled maple tree.

The kitchen is composed of stainless steel, from the cabinetry fabricated by Barcelona company Timblau, to the counters and backsplash, the latter given a mirror polish for contrast to the former’s patina on the surfaces. The boxes were brought in on a crane and then the group put them together in place. “The kitchen shouldn't be a closed dirty area of the house,” says Jon. “But [rather] the heart.” Fitting, as social life in the Basque culture revolves around eating together.

After: A new porch roof, made of metal, completes the updated exterior facade. The home’s doors and the garage door are painted a punchy pink, Benjamin Moore’s Rosewood.

After: The kitchen’s countertops and backsplash are “all those 1950s-30s enamel card tables,” Geoffrey explains. “That was a decision I made early on; it took me a year and a half to collect them all.” The beams were a great surprise; they were hidden away in the ceiling. The appliances are former Consumer Reports test appliances bought at auction, and the ceiling lights are a custom design, intended to look mid-century.

The 1969 summer house needed a gut remodel—so Carisa Salerno and Aaron Levin rebuilt it piece by piece: “In the end, we feel like we built a sculpture, not a house.”

The kitchen was completely remade with custom cabinetry and counters. "We weren't really sure what we wanted in the kitchen, so my dad had an idea to build us a kitchen out of cardboard with an island and everything. Aaron and I are visual people so we needed to see it at scale to decide,

In the kitchen, quartzite kitchen island countertops and a wall of off-white ceramic tile complement the walnut cabinetry and brass surfaces.

For the interior, “We worked hard to basically keep the tones the same, even if the wood may have changed, from a hardwood to a soft wood,” says Sabbeth. Interestingly, the couple first wanted to whitewash the wood, but that treatment was eventually deemed too cold for the year-round coziness everyone was after.

The kitchen is a balance of woods and stone, with marble on the large island and Naica quartzite in a leathered finish on the perimeter counters and backsplash. The stove hood is a custom plaster finish: “I was constantly looking for ways to add softness,” says interior designer Holly Waterfield.

Set on a quiet street in L.A.'s Los Feliz neighborhood, the historic home features a tall privacy wall that hides a spacious front courtyard.

The new volume extends into the backyard but increases the house’s footprint by only 225 square feet. It is slightly taller than the existing structure, minimizing overlap between roofs. The cladding is composed of marine-grade plywood panels, colored black with Benjamin Moore’s Arborcoat exterior stain, to create an affordable facsimile of cement fiberboard panels. The patio is paved in black decomposed granite.

Otto looks through the newly enlarged opening to the revamped backyard. The bifold doors are from Sierra Pacific, and the deck is made from sustainably harvested Fijian mahogany. The architect replaced the kitchen’s linoleum floor with engineered oak flooring.

“We pulled apart one volume and staggered it along the buildable area of the property,” says architect Matthew Ahlberg of Portland firm Barrett Made. The home is clad in unfinished cedar, meant to weather over time.