Sultan of Sit Even if your carpentry skills peaked in eighth-grade woodshop, reclaimed lumber and a bit of sweat can stand you in good stead when it comes to outdoor furniture. Whitlock created a ruggedly beautiful bench (below) from scratch. He bought a chunk of trestle lumber at a local salvage yard and lag-bolted four Ikea Sultan stainless steel bed legs to its base. “It took me two hours, including lumberyard drive time,” he says. “I spent $70 total.” ikea.com

The back patio is bordered by boulders picked up on the Gambys' land. Tanya says that particular design element will be repeated in the next home they build: "We've actually unearthed one the size of a minivan that we're going to use in the bigger house."

The floor is polished concrete, chosen for its durability, low-cost, and minimal maintenance. The red fiberglass armchair is from Modernica.

Shannon and his wife, Amy, take the air on a small patio in two Acapulco chairs.

The windows on the right look out to Manhattan. The blue Acapulco chair echoes the aquatic tones of the bathroom tiles.

Architect Gregory Phillips connected the original house to a new modern extension that doesn’t interfere with the surrounding houses. “I try to be true to the location,”he explains, “so it doesn’t seem like some spaceship has landed.”

This stylized vintage trailer is the image of small-scale luxury.

This bathroom, tiled in bright blue mosaic to offset the home’s limited materials and color palette, calls for a simple vanity. The sinks, toilets, and tubs are by Villeroy & Boch, while the faucets and towel rails are by Grohe and Avenir, respectively.

Pavers and succulents in a yard in Malibu, California, help save water.

The Cardboard Cantilever Chair performs a bit of structural sleight-of-hand, creating a daring form out of a weak material.

In the garden room, Juhl's 1957 Japanese chair lies next to a sofa table and a built-in bench, designed for the house. The blue upholstery matches Anna Thommsen’s carpet.

@designmilk: "This is my kinda chair. @lolldesigns #dod2014"

Yang Yeo and his girlfriend Ching Ian relax on the back stoop of their renovated and radically updated Singapore shophouse—an archetypal building type in this busy port city. “Shophouses brought back memories of our childhood,” says Yeo.

The beanbag chairs and outdoor sofa and chairs are from West Elm and the Case Study Museum Bench is from Modernica.

The hardscaping helps keep water use to a minimum. The Lais used gravel—accented by drought-tolerant bamboo—to create their side yard.

The budget was nearly as tight as the space in this cheerful renovation of a 516-square-foot flat in Bratislava. The centerpiece of Lukáš Kordík’s new kitchen is the cabinetry surrounding the sink, a feat he managed by altering the facing and pulls of an off-the-rack Ikea system. The laminate offers a good punch of blue, and in modernist fashion, Kordík forwent door handles in favor of cutouts. “I wanted the kitchen to be one simple block of color without any additional design,” he says.

Tanya, Chris, Jackson, and Zeke spend much of their day outside.

Though the front of this 1880s home in Adelaide, Australia, maintains a traditional facade due to strict heritage laws, the rear is modern eye candy at its best. See more of the home.

In fall, the color of this backyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, changes daily with the foliage. Elizabeth Birdsall marvels how new outdoor spaces on her property, like a patio furnished with upholstered seating from Gloster, make enjoying the woods an easy experience: “It’s like comfortable camping, all the time.”

The dining room features 1970s leather-and-brass dining chairs and a table concocted from a brass-and-silver base and a custom lacquered top. The cheerful blue paint enlivening the doorway is from Emery & Cie.

Another water-saving project in Menlo Park includes a rock bed with succulents.

This is Moritz and Elmar, two DIY chair makers from the Bodensee area of Germany. They had no jobs when they built their 24 Euro chairs, and the experience strengthened their friendship. “They sent this picture in to the Hartz IV Moebel website for my book. This is one of the ways that the Karma Economy has worked for me,” says Van Bo. “The KE concept, developed by Danny Iny, about how to help helpful people so that we create a vibrant community without having to use money—has been great for me. These guys are enjoying their new chairs, and I have a book that elucidates my ideas. Everyone is happy!”

A diagram of the chair's structure.

The children’s rooms, which are reserved for family and an extended network of friends, feature more custom Crasset-designed beds set against a vivid blue backdrop, courtesy of the French paint brand Zolpan.

A sky-blue vintage trailer blends in with the sky.

In such a small space “you have to organize, and every piece takes a decision,” says resident Heidi Wright. The couple keep things they use less frequently, like guest bedding, in the higher cabinets.

Photo by Tom Bies

When the Ferguson Sauder family—parents Meg, a school counselor, and Tim, a design instructor, plus kids Cole, Olive, and Asher—wanted a multifunctional backyard addition, they decided to build it themselves. Two Liftoff chairs by Tim Miller, one of Tim’s former students, surround an oil-drum fire pit set in granite dug up on the property. On the deck, the Panamericana chair is by Industry of All Nations.

The first thing landscape designer Laura Cooper asked Devis and Purdy was to recall childhood gardens and outdoor play. In that spirit, she designed their backyard, integrating the high ground with the low just outside the “kids’ wing.” The resulting series of outdoor rooms on this quarter-acre is full of memory and play.

Photo by Leo Mieles

@sfixler: Outdoor spaces... Sighhhh #dwelloutdoor

The typewriter shown here was a flea-market find.

Working with a limited budget, First Lamp designed and built one principle architectural flourish: exposed Douglas fir rafters that would weather to a brighter red over the years and accent the white siding.

The modern addition sits on a concrete platform that extends past the house’s envelope, creating welcoming patios on each side. “From any space within the home you are no more than a few steps from one of the outdoor spaces,” Busick says. On the west-facing back porch, Green Kite Chairs by Karim Rashid and a poppy-red hammock offer ideal spots from which to take in the sunset.

Lisette requested the central work island, which cantilevers over the pool.