Innehållsförteckning för February/March 2022 från House Beautiful

IT ALL STARTED WITH the stove. Alison Giese’s Arlington, Virginia, clients selected their kitchen’s centerpiece—a Lacanche range in a deep, dusky gray—before hiring the designer to oversee a top-to-bottom overhaul of the ’90s-era space. “Their take was, ‘We know this is going to be an investment. We want to do things right the first time,’” Giese recalls. “They were willing to do high-end appliances to get the kitchen they wanted.” Giese went on to curate a sumptuous material palette to match the handcrafted French range: brass hardware, bespoke oak cabinetry, stone countertops. But before any of this could be actualized, the floor plan needed fixing. “The working area was all crammed into one side of the space, and they really didn’t know what to do with the other half,” Giese…

PHILLIP SMITH admits he has an obsession with stone homes. So when he began looking for a weekend getaway of his own, the New York City resident centered his search in the Hudson Valley, where woodlands are dotted with centuries-old homes crafted from local stone. He fell in love with a 1716 house in Rhinebeck. With the charming facade, however, came some drawbacks: thick stone walls with minimal openings and low-ceilinged rooms. (“The construction style protected against what were brutal elements in those days,” explains Smith.) After he began spending more than just weekends there, Smith tapped architect Robert A. Marrapodi to create a modern addition. “He had the brilliant idea to break through that solid stone wall in two positions so I gained all of that light, because it…

“I’M NOT INTERESTED IN SEEING SOMETHING I’VE SEEN BEFORE,” LUCY HARRIS’S client told her. “I live in a town where a lot of people are designers themselves. A lot of them are my friends, and a lot of them are on Instagram.” A mother of three teens, the owner was talking about a new scheme for the Westchester County, New York, home she and her husband purchased: a sweeping French Normandy–style house built (and stylistically mired) in the early aughts, an era of ballooning Roman shades, wall-to-wall carpet, and beige walls. Harris honored the request. “Our take was, let’s find them really interesting pieces from somebody who had a very strong vision,” says the designer, who worked with architecture firm Alisberg Parker on the remodel. “I don’t do a lot…

HARDWOOD Solid hardwood flooring consists of planks made from single slabs of timber, which means every set is unique. “Mother Nature makes hardwood,” says Jennifer Meska, director of merchandising at LL Flooring. “That means that if you have a hardwood floor, you have a floor that no one else in the world has.” Beloved for this reason, hardwoods are a popular, albeit relatively pricey, pick. If scratching is a concern, look for a wood species with a high Janka rating. Choose Your Shine Every hardwood floor needs a protective coat. MATTE The lowest-luster option, this contemporary pick conceals blemishes while emphasizing the details in the wood grain. SATIN By far the most common, a satin finish lends a moderate shine and velvety look. GLOSSY While great for highlighting certain spaces…

“Natural colors and fibers will transport you to a lush rainforest (and they usually feel as nice as they look!).”…

“THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE.” GAZING AT THE CUSTOM STUDIO DRIFT LIGHT sculpture that dazzles above the living room of this Tribeca apartment, designer Rodney Lawrence finds himself rapt. “It’s segments of stained glass made into these cubes that are stacked into different levels. It reminds me of the stained glass version of Superman’s headquarters.” The description is fitting for the whole home. Before Lawrence had his way with it, the 4,000-square-foot loft space in lower Manhattan was a massive void of developeradded Sheetrock walls with a few preserved columns from its industrial days. But his repeat client, a single father of two college-age sons and a younger daughter, “wanted to live a little differently, in not such enclosed spaces.” Lawrence’s mission became “Keep that openness, but at the same time…

WILL YOU GET INSANELY DELAYED? At this point, having patience throughout the renovation process is simply table stakes. Construction projects of all shapes and sizes are taking longer these days—15 to 30 percent longer than in 2016, says Arizona contractor Brad Leavitt, president and founder of A Finer Touch Construction in Scottsdale. And while the bogged-down supply chain gets plenty of the blame, there are delays at every step. Take permits: Leavitt has found that what was once an eight-week process can now take 16 (or even 30) weeks as local municipalities struggle to keep up with a surge in demand. All the while, the project just sits, a frustrating scenario for the design team and the homeowner. Other delays—like a project that’s at a standstill until that back-ordered tile…

WHEN JANICE PARKER FIRST stepped into her new home in Greenwich, Connecticut, she was overwhelmed. The landscape architect is an expert when it comes to refining outdoor spaces, but has no experience tackling interiors—let alone a 6,000-square-foot spec house with five bedrooms and six bathrooms spanning three floors. “It was too big and too bright. There were so many windows,” she explains. “I just didn’t know how to feel at home in it.” Parker reached out to her longtime friend Jamie Drake, cofounder (along with Caleb Anderson) of the Manhattan-based firm Drake/Anderson. He was the only person she trusted to transform the cookie-cutter house into a place she and her husband, Jim, could truly call their own. “I needed someone who had a very good sense of my inner life,”…

ALISON VICTORIA HAD NEVER considered herself an apartment kind of girl. But when she laid eyes on the Stacks lofts, a converted 1880s textile mill in Atlanta, the HGTV star immediately knew she had to buy a unit there—even if only to flip it. At the time, Victoria was living in her native Chicago (filming her hit show Windy City Rehab) and visiting Atlanta to guest star in Ty Pennington’s renovation show Ty Breaker. By the time the show wrapped, she’d made an offer on a unit in the Stacks, never really intending to live there. But the further along the project got, the more she found herself falling in love with it. “I started getting really into the project and decided I wanted to keep this home for the…