The renovation revealed a 30-foot-deep well beneath the bedroom, which the team half-jokingly considered turning into a fish tank. Instead, they opted for a simple bedroom with plenty of built-in storage.

Shibata made the 10-person dining table using $130 sawhorse legs from Maruki Wood Products Company topped with a sheet of birch plywood. A hole in the sliding wall fits over the table, enabling it to be used in both the library and the meeting room. malki.jp A movable wall clad in wainscoting on one side slides along tracks in the dining-room ceiling, dividing the room into a meeting space and a library. The Shiro Simple Modern Pendant lights can be easily removed and reattached after moving the wall. vanilladesign.jp

In the living room of the Barcelona apartment designer Elina Vila D’Acosta-Calheiros shares with her husband, Ginés Gorriz, Arne Jacobsen Swan chairs join a sofa by Piero Lissoni for Living Divani. The cabinet is from Cappellini, as is the Marcel Wanders Big Shadow lamp.

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

An older building doesn't mean that it can't also be modern, particularly in the kitchen.

Home Renovation Tip: Decide on a Sensible Scope of Work

The couple’s white Bulthaup kitchen is set within a double-height volume hung with Tom Dixon Beat lights, arranged in a custom configuration by interior designer Maria Rosa Di Ioia. Overhead, Cubit shelving artfully displays books and objects, accessible by a glass-walled footbridge added during the renovation.

The renovation was designed to preserve and call attention to the angular pattern of the crisscrossing concrete ceiling beams. Photo by Jim Stephenson.

Architects who practice in dense cities know its almost impossible to add square footage to an apartment. Yet at a garden-level residence in Boston's historic Beacon Hill neighborhood, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop was able to unearth 70 square feet of living space through a little excavation.

The open wardrobe is simply a bench with a single rod traversing the bedroom.

“The color choice relied on intuition,” says Elizadle. “Wood was the perfect material, and great way to bridge old and new. It’s traditional and really Nordic, an inspiration from a trip to Stockholm a few years ago.”

A set of birch plywood pieces, used to create sliding doors, benches, and storage, added subtle accents and maximized the space. The apartment features a very open floor plan centered around the custom dining room table.

“It was beautiful to see the passage of time in the apartment,” he says, referencing the original tiled floors, which he patched up with newer tiles to create a subtle chromatic shift across the floor.

Elizadle had sensed there was big opportunities when he started the project in January, and found a plenty hidden by previous residents. He said the process was like a selective defoliation, peeling back layers to reveal the inspiring original construction.

Numerous renovations left the 1930s apartment dark, cramped, and confused, a space searching for a strong personality. Stripping the track-marked wood floors and dropped ceilings of the roughly 750-square-foot space revealed a subtle vaulted ceiling and a colorful series of tiles.

Barcelona-based architect Adrian Elizalde embarked on a renovation project for his family’s new apartment. His strategy was to inject some Scandinavian cool on a limited budget, using custom wood pieces and a sparse aesthetic to open things up. Lamps sourced from secondhand stores and a set of Belloch chairs by Santa & Cole are arrayed across the space.

An Introduction to Modern Textiles: Kit out your furniture in luxurious silk or no-frills leather,; textiles can add just as much dimension to room as art, and can be equally collectible.

The New Project Group renovated a cramped, uninviting space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company gave the 400-square-foot apartment a gut renovation, with a new kitchen and bathroom designed for efficiency. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.

The historic apartment has been updated throughout with white paint and minimalist accents, adapting its rustic character to the 21st-century.

“The upper floor includes the entry, cloakroom, guest bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, and terrace,” Hammer says. “In contrast to the lower floor and its separated rooms, the living area is composed as an open space with no walls.” Nerd Chairs by David Geckeler for Muuto surround a handcrafted nutwood table in the dining room.

Abbes and Davison removed drywall to expose the brick on one wall in the living room. "As we began to expose that brick, we found the old metal framing that they used to use," Daivson says. "They used to stick chicken-mesh wire on it and put plaster on top. When we exposed the brick, we found this metal detail and decided to keep it." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

"In the kitchen, we changed the layout," Davison says. "It was a galley kitchen, extending lengthways into the room. We spun it back along the back wall. The tiles are Moroccan concrete tiles that came from a supplier here in Manhattan. The idea was to inject some color and playfulness into the space with the blue cabinetry." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

A geographic lime-green tile pattern was incorporated into the bathroom to complement the sink, which was found in an architectural salvage yard and retains its original color. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

“All interior walls were removed to create four individual rooms on the sixth floor,” Hammer says. The two children and the new baby share a bathroom. And in their bedrooms, storage continues to be key.

All of the artwork was created by the New Design Project. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

The cantilevered shelving in the bedroom was fashioned from vintage metal panels that were purchased online, Davison says. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

Another view of the master bedroom shows more original artwork by the New Design Project. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

Skylights draw sunshine into the apartment.

The apartment originally crammed four closed rooms and a kitchen and bathroom into 1,000 square feet. After the renovation, it had only one bedroom and a large, open kitchen.

You may think that a library has to be its own room, but books can be stored and read just about anywhere. Lining a hallway with books turns it into a library that you’ll walk through, and be inspired by, every day. Cabinets below provide extra storage and even a place to sit and read.

Fabian and Dorothee Heine’s renovation began and ended with a particular kitchen system. Almost a year before finding the flat they would call home, the Hamburg-based couple decided upon a matte black Vipp kitchen that Fabian had glimpsed in the window of the company’s Copenhagen showroom. The island serves as a generous workspace for Fabian to prepare dishes with her son Morten.

This bright apartment renovation in Barcelona by Architectural design firm YLAB Arquitectos Barcelona, yielded a discrete home work space that's divided from from the living room with a sliding door.

Two custom built-in structures form a corridor-like workspace in the kitchen. The appliances are by Miele, and the steel-and-black glass sink is from Franke.

In Barcelona's Diagonal Mar district, architects Tobias Laarmann and Yolanda Yuste Lopex of YLAB Arquitectos renovated an automated studio apartment, with an eye towards carving out distinct stations throughout the open-plan space. Elongated countertops and cabinetry in the kitchen align with a large street-facing window to allow for maximum light and views, while also partitioning the apartment's communal areas. Rich oak wood lines the floors and the backsplash, recessed in the graphite shelving unit, and a quartet of Eames plastic shell chairs furnish the dining area.

A black-laquered bed frame and side tables by Besform furnish the master bedroom, where the wood-clad accent wall both continues the oak motif and acts as a minimal headboard accent. The bed linens are by Kokoklim and the linen curtains are by Acor.

The same space before it was updated.