With adjacent neighbors within a fairly dense section of Paradise Valley, Arizona, C.P. Drewett sought to provide a tranquil retreat for a new-to-the-Valley surgeon and his family who were seeking the modernism they loved though had never lived in. With a goal of consuming all possible site lines and views while maintaining autonomy, a portion of the house — including the entry, office, and master bedroom wing — is subterranean. This subterranean nature of the home provides interior grandeur for guests but offers a welcoming and humble approach, fully satisfying the clients requests. While the lot has an east-west orientation, the home was designed to capture mainly north and south light which is more desirable and soothing. The architecture’s interior loftiness is created with overlapping, undulating planes of plaster, glass, and steel. The woven nature of horizontal planes throughout the living spaces provides an uplifting sense, inviting a symphony of light to enter the space. The more voluminous public spaces are comprised of stone-clad massing elements which convert into a desert pavilion embracing the outdoor spaces. Every room opens to exterior spaces providing a dramatic embrace of home to natural environment. Grand Award winner for Best Interior Design of a Custom Home The material palette began with a rich, tonal, large-format Quartzite stone cladding. The stone’s tones gaveforth the rest of the material palette including a champagne-colored metal fascia, a tonal stucco system, and ceilings clad with hemlock, a tight-grained but softer wood that was tonally perfect with the rest of the materials. The interior case goods and wood-wrapped openings further contribute to the tonal harmony of architecture and materials. Grand Award Winner for Best Indoor Outdoor Lifestyle for a Home This award-winning project was recognized at the 2020 Gold Nugget Awards with two Grand Awards, one for Best Indoor/Outdoor Lifestyle for a Home, and another for Best Interior Design of a One of a Kind or Custom Home. At the 2020 Design Excellence Awards and Gala presented by ASID AZ North, Ownby Design received five awards for Tonal Harmony. The project was recognized for 1st place – Bathroom; 3rd place – Furniture; 1st place – Kitchen; 1st place – Outdoor Living; and 2nd place – Residence over 6,000 square ft. Congratulations to Claire Ownby, Kalysha Manzo, and the entire Ownby Design team. Tonal Harmony was also featured on the cover of the July/August 2020 issue of Luxe Interiors + Design and received a 14-page editorial feature entitled “A Place in the Sun” within the magazine.

For this knock down rebuild in the Canberra suburb of O'Connor the interior design aesethic was modern and sophisticated. A monochrome palette of black and white herringbone tiles paired with soft grey tiles and black and gold tap wear have been used in this powder room. Interiors and styling by Studio Black Interiors Built by ACT Building Photography by Hcreations

A powder room adds flexibility to your entire household. The lovely herringbone tiles set the mood, colour palette and overall theme in this divine powder room setting.

photographed by Omar Miranda

Porcelanosa textured tiles Miton Cucine Cabinetry Hansgrohe fixtures #buildboswell Jim Bartsch; Linda Kasian

A neutral colour palette was the main aspect of the brief setting the tone for a sophisticated and elegant home. The tile we chose is called "Paris White". It is a light colour tile with darker flecks and gently undulating vein patterning reminiscent of sandy shorelines. It has a smooth matt surface that feels lovely to the touch and is very easy to clean. We used this tile on both the walls and the floor of this Powder room. The brushed gold tapware possesses a gentle hue, and its brushed finish exudes a timeless, classic appeal.

If there is one room in the home that requires frequent visitors to thoroughly enjoy with a huge element of surprise, it’s the powder room! This is a room where you know that eventually, every guest will visit. Knowing this, we created a bold statement with layers of intrigue that would leave ample room for fun conversation with your guests upon their prolonged exit. We kept the lights dim here for that intriguing experience of crafted elegance and created ambiance. The walls of peeling metallic rust are the welcoming gesture to a powder room experience of defiance and elegant mystical complexity.

This powder room was designed to show off the eclectic style of the homeowners. They wanted to feature something unique from Kohler's Artist Edition collection, so we chose the Serpentine Bronze vessel sink and designed the rest of the space from there. We used a furniture style vanity from Fieldstone's Spa Vanity line with the Bristol door style in a Cherry Mocha finish. The Revival wall mount faucet from Kohler in brushed nickel allowed for the vessel sink to fit comfortably on the vanity surface. The homeowner chose an eclectic decorative wall mirror & sconces to complement the lines in the vessel sink. Floor-to-ceiling tile was used to create a stone feel inspired by the era invoked by the sink. Photography by: Kyle J Caldwell

Fun, fresh brightly colored powder bath.

This gem of a house was built in the 1950s, when its neighborhood undoubtedly felt remote. The university footprint has expanded in the 70 years since, however, and today this home sits on prime real estate—easy biking and reasonable walking distance to campus. When it went up for sale in 2017, it was largely unaltered. Our clients purchased it to renovate and resell, and while we all knew we'd need to add square footage to make it profitable, we also wanted to respect the neighborhood and the house’s own history. Swedes have a word that means “just the right amount”: lagom. It is a guiding philosophy for us at SYH, and especially applied in this renovation. Part of the soul of this house was about living in just the right amount of space. Super sizing wasn’t a thing in 1950s America. So, the solution emerged: keep the original rectangle, but add an L off the back. With no owner to design with and for, SYH created a layout to appeal to the masses. All public spaces are the back of the home--the new addition that extends into the property’s expansive backyard. A den and four smallish bedrooms are atypically located in the front of the house, in the original 1500 square feet. Lagom is behind that choice: conserve space in the rooms where you spend most of your time with your eyes shut. Put money and square footage toward the spaces in which you mostly have your eyes open. In the studio, we started calling this project the Mullet Ranch—business up front, party in the back. The front has a sleek but quiet effect, mimicking its original low-profile architecture street-side. It’s very Hoosier of us to keep appearances modest, we think. But get around to the back, and surprise! lofted ceilings and walls of windows. Gorgeous.

Joel Barbitta, D-Max Photography

White walls and just a bit of extra space in a powder room makes a normally confined space feel luxurious.