The dining room features a Glo-Ball T table lamp by Jasper Morrison.

To integrate the former postman’s cottage with the new design, architect David Sheppard added a concrete column adjacent to an existing stone chimney and a new slate chimney “at the heart of the composition.” From this, the roof structure fans out; the small structure now serves as an anteroom.

In Kathryn Tyler’s finished home, a palette of wood, concrete, and painted brick forms a neutral backdrop for vintage treasures, including a $30 dining table, $3 poster, and a set of 1950s Carl Jacobs Jason chairs she snagged on eBay for $400.

In the living room, Arne Jacobsen Swan chairs flank a Marcel Breuer for Isokon nesting table. Above the Florence Knoll–designed credenza is a print by English artist Terry Frost. The adjacent deck holds Breuer’s Folding Armchair and a table from Aram in London.

Suzanne and Brooks Kelley at the back of their 1,100-square-foot guest cottage.

Architect Paul Hinkin and his partner, Chrissy Pearce, bought and restored a 538-square-foot Deckhouse at Emsworth Yacht Harbour in Hampshire, England.

With the help of builder Peter Watts, the couple returned the house to its original early-1970s glory, utilizing the space beneath for both boat and car.

Lassen says the biggest key for designing a small space is to keep things as minimalist as possible. “Don’t try to make anything bigger or build an addition. Just remove all bad architecture and create clean, simple rooms.”

On an island 20 miles off the coast of Maine, a writer, with the help of his daughter, built not only a room, but an entire green getaway of his own.

Sliding doors partition a cozy screening room, where the resident can enjoy films and television in the comfort of custom designed furniture.

Bruce Thatcher and Kirsty Leighton behind their London home.

An onyx "hearth" and a French limestone banquet form the perimeter of the warm living room. The carpet is from Tai Ping.

In the farmhouse architect Lucy Marston built for her family in Suffolk, England, she balanced off-the-shelf pieces, such as a velvet-covered sofa from sofa.com, with customized key elements, like the kitchen. The refrigerator is from Fisher & Paykel, and the tiles are from Topps Tiles.

The room’s opposite side holds the companion Breuer nesting tables and an Eames Aluminum Group chair and ottoman.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

“I wanted to do a house that belonged on the site,” she says.

The design eschews right angles on the exterior and interior, which was one of the most challenging aspects of the design for Kallesø.

"We felt it was important to create continuity with nature, rather than compete with it," Soranno stated. "The connection with nature is what makes this place special."

Who says kitchen islands can’t work in small spaces too? A design-minded pair ensures that their tiny seaside getaway in Hampshire, England, is shipshape. At 538 square feet, this home is efficiently designed, with an interior that was influenced by the compact housing that you see in Japan. The kitchen and island have been sized to fit the small space, but the island’s minimal finishings keep it feeling appropriate.

A circular tower echoes the former gas storage cylinder that once occupied its place. It houses a private study.

Near the room’s curving wall, a Verner Panton chair joins a K2 B console table by Tecta, topped by a vintage mirror by Robert Welch. The wall light is from Flos. “If I had more space, I’d just fill it with more stuff,” says Pearce.

The cedar-and-glass structure rises over an expansive rear patio. Although it is larger than some of its neighbors, the home nearly matches the height line of the surrounding houses due to its flat, modern roof.

The master bedroom echoes the house’s black-and-white exterior and includes a custom-built storage unit that the architect designed for the space.

The home's defining quality is its airy, double-height spaces.

The Kelleys furnished the cottage with help from Suzanne’s daughter Betsy Burbank of Betsy Burbank Interiors. Classic modernist icons, such as a Saarinen Womb chair for Knoll, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair, and an Eileen Grey E1027 side table look at home alongside present-day pieces such as an Encore sofa (which handily folds down into a sleeping surface) from Room & Board and a Doka rug designed and produced by Stephanie Odegard. The Wohlert pendant lights from Louis Poulsen were designed by Vilhelm Wohlert in 1959, but grouped as such, they appear distinctly contemporary.

The former workman’s cottage had undergone dated renovations.

Piet Hein Eek's wooden chairs add a touch of color to the monochromatic Amsterdram apartment of Hunter Hindman and Shelby Carr.

In the dining room, which opens to the backyard terrace, original tilework on the floors and walls complement decidedly modern counterparts—an original 1938 Butterfly chair by Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, and a 1983 TMC floor lamp by Spanish designer Miguel Milá.

Two San Francisco art and travel addicts overhauled a loft—and customized a pair of shipping containers—to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions. The shipping containers were stacked, joined with steel tubes, and lashed to reinforced floor joints to make them earthquake-safe.

The dining room.

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“The liberal use of wood roots the structure in the landscape and provides the owners with an experience strongly connected with location,” Herrin says. The exterior’s Western red cedar shingle siding has a semi-transparent stain, half Fieldstone and half Burnt Hickory from Cabot.

A model of a one-room cabin.

Architect Jim Garrison takes on this lakeside retreat in Albion, Michigan. The table in the common area, which continues the FSC-certified maple used throughout the interior, is mostly used for dining and serves as the hub of the house.

One of the early challenges of building the house was defining the property lines of the lot, which had come to be known as "the floating acre" among the local fishermen.

The modest bedroom looks towards the yard and part of the owner’s garden. The table, by Jayson Home, holds a vintage lamp and is flanked by a Spring Lounge chair by Cappellini.