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Your Favorite Podcast Wants to Make You Feel at Home

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 4 Sep 2026 12:56:32 -0700

As more money flows into the medium, professionally designed sets that mimic domestic backdrops have become the go-to ingredient for keeping things candid.

I have to imagine I’m not the only person who has said to a friend, "We should start a podcast." I have a clear memory of having this conversation with a former roommate after one of our frequent evening debriefs, sitting on opposite sides of our gray, L-shaped sofa beneath a gallery wall, our legs tucked under blankets and kicked up on the water-stained West Elm storage coffee table sourced from Facebook Marketplace. If we had started a podcast (we didn’t), that table is probably where we would’ve set up microphones to casually record our ramblings. If there were enough people out there who wanted to listen (we’ll never know!), our setup would’ve likely eventually evolved to include at least one video camera. But we might not have felt the need to change our "studio" setting; today, the lived-in backdrop would’ve fit right in with the look of many of the most popular podcasts out there.

As podcasts have swung from an audio-only medium to a video-centric one, with Youtube becoming the dominant platform for consumption, the lines between video podcasts ("vodcasts") and traditional television talk shows, late night, and cable newscasts have increasingly blurred. Professionally designed recording studios are now the norm; most new talk show podcasts launch with built-out sets, and ones that started before podcasting’s major pivot to video around 2020 have adjusted to meet the moment. At first, that just meant starting a Youtube channel with video recordings of podcast episodes, but since 2023 (upon close study), numerous major podcasters have unveiled full-on recording studio overhauls. And across categories, from pop culture "chat-casts" to expert interview and political commentary shows, those sets overwhelmingly pull from domestic aesthetics, whether they’re filmed in at-home studios or production headquarters. The central notion is that the most interesting, honest, and natural conversations happen between people in the comfort of their homes—and wouldn’t anybody want to be a fly on the wall for those?

Interwoven Studios and creative director Connor Brock designed the set for Jake Shane’s Therapuss podcast before its first season. They updated it for the show’s second season (shown left) and for the third on Netflix. Interwoven and Brock also designed the studio for What We Said (top). The Dear Media podcast launched in 2018, added video in 2024, and debuted the new set at the end of that year. So True With Caleb Hearon started recording from a new, built-out studio when it was picked up by Wave Sports and Entertainment in late 2025 (right).

Left to right: Courtesy Interwoven Studios; Courtesy Dear Media; So True with Caleb Hearon via Youtube

The nostalgic lounge

When you start looking, there are some clear aesthetic categories that emerge. One of the most recognizable examples of a category I’ll call "the blast-from-the-past living room/lounge" is the wood-paneled backdrop of Therapuss, the talk show–style podcast from influencer/comedian Jake Shane that was among a slew of well-established titles licensed by Netflix in early 2026 (when the streamer ignited a race amongst major streaming services to add video podcasts to their platforms). Before the show’s first season in 2024, Shane and his team approached Los Angeles production services company Interwoven Studios and creative director Connor Brock to design the set, and asked for something along the lines of a "midcentury-modern-inspired therapist’s office," Brock says. They built a distinctly of the internet-era vision of a 1960s den—er, shrink’s office—in the guesthouse behind Shane’s L.A. home. In one episode, Shane and Charli XCX kick up their feet on blue velvet lounges, the framed faux certificates behind them reminding of Shane’s position in "the proverbial therapist’s chair," while the TAYLOR SWIFT ERAS TOUR bumper sticker propped on a bookshelf gestures that he, like the audience, is ultimately just a pop culture stan.

Interwoven cofounder Chance Horky says Shane’s team made "a purposeful investment" in the look of the set as Therapuss took off in its second season, though he declined to discuss numbers. In came a stick-on stone accent wall, patterned rug, and Eamesesque wood-and-leather sofas to add visual texture; out went the Eras Tour sticker and the wood-and-brass bar cart. In the third (exclusive-to-Netflix) season, the framed certificates are the main signifiers that we’re not just in the warm-but-spotless living room of a chronically online person who spends a sufficient chunk of their income on taste-signaling home decor. A-list guests like Hailey Bieber and Kylie Jenner lean into the brown velvet couch and talk to Shane like he’s a friend (indeed, he runs in the same circles as many of his superfamous guests). The environment is shiny enough for fully styled and glammed celebrities to not feel totally out of place in (hello, chrome accents!), but still within-reach for the pop culture devotee watching through the screen to project themselves into.

Some living room-like podcast sets lean into similarly stylized nostalgia for past eras that the hosts and audience actually know firsthand. The set where Arizona-born influencers Jaci Marie Smith and Chelsey Jade Curtis film their lifestyle podcast What We Said—also designed by Brock with Interwoven—could easily be the childhood bedroom of a wealthy New Englander whose empty-nester parents took the space and repurposed it as a reading corner, leaving the baby-pink-and-blue wallpaper and the bulletin board with Polaroids and Post-Its but making space for their World Atlas collection. Brock says the duo’s team gave them a mood board to illustrate the aesthetic they wanted, which he describes as "like, Northeastern rich girl from the Nineties." When the podcasters talk through relationship red flags and "unhinged wellness habits" or stories about wedding drama and accidental texts on chintz-style upholstered chairs, we’re supposed to feel like we’re watching two hometown besties-cum-sorority sisters locking in on a gossip session, and lucky you, you got the invite.

By contrast, comedian Caleb Hearon’s So True got a new set last year that could be a believable pop-up for an Urban Outfitters collab with the children’s book classic, Goodnight Moon. The aesthetics—a green-tiled fireplace with colorful camp pennant flags, and a wall-mounted cord landline—help suggest the tone: We’re in a space that might remind millennials of ones they played and learned in as children, so expect conversations that bounce between silly, intellectual, and earnest.

In Your Dreams With Owen Thiele launched in 2024 under Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network with a Y2K-inspired bedroom set where he films the podcast from his home (left). Influencer Becca Moore also started her For the Girls podcast in 2024 and by the end of that year started recording episodes from a professionally designed at-home studio (right).

Left to right: In Your Dreams With Owen Thiele via Youtube; For the Girls with Becca Moore via Youtube

The Y2K bedroom

Unsurprising to anyone who’s had even one eye open to what the kids have been into over the past few years, the Y2K bedroom is a more specific subset of the nostalgic podcast set that’s a go-to backdrop for a certain type of zillennial chat-cast. In Owen Thiele’s In Your Dreams, the influencer/comedian curls up on an unmade bed dense with fuzzy pillows and plushies with Gen Z favorites like Emma Chamberlain, who lean against a wall plastered with cutouts from their own magazine spreads alongside Taylor Swift album covers (clearly a quick signifier of 21st-century fan culture) and flyers for canons of early-aughts media like Lizzie McGuire. The hyperstylized slumber party aesthetic begets a manufactured atmosphere of familiarity where Thiele can ask Kendall Jenner, for example, to address internet rumors about her sexuality in a way that Jimmy Fallon could never in a more late-night talk show setting. Remember, this is a sleepover where personal lore is shared—not a traditional media interview.

The set of influencer Becca Moore’s For the Girls (a double entendre for the intended demographic of her podcast, and also her romantic interests) also borrows from the decorative hallmarks of the era. Moore talks directly to the camera about her own dating stories and interviews other queer influencers on a pink Togo-style sofa with a cheetah print blanket and throw pillows. Behind her, there’s a bulletin board with butterfly clips, a Clamshell Macbook, a bedazzled desk chair, and baby-pink walls strewn with cutouts of 2000s pop girl icons like Britney Spears, and queer canon media moments like the iconic Megan Fox lighter shot in Jennifer’s Body.

If the Y2K bedroom podcast studio looks more believably lived-in than "the blast-from-the-past living room/lounge," that’s on purpose. "It’s always towing the line that you see just enough of my mess to feel like we’re hanging out, but also I’m a content creator," explains Christine Tran, an assistant professor at Alberta University of the Arts whose research covers digital culture, domesticity, and the creator economy. "There’s still that professional sheen."

As far as domestic spaces go, the bedroom is the one that most reliably signals intimacy, but Tran argues that it also carries a particularly gendered undertone. "Bedrooms have historically afforded women spaces of safety and networking," she says. "Scholars have looked at the bedroom as a rehearsal room for the type of femininities and social-emotional labor that girls are expected to perform outside the home." Youth culture theorists Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber introduced the concept of "bedroom culture" in a late ’70s essay highlighting how teen girls of the time participated in subcultures in their private domestic spaces, and researchers have pointed to girls’ bedrooms as "sites of cultural production" since the ’90s and 2000s especially: of zines, of blogs, of fanfic, of mixtapes, of dances, and, eventually, of Youtube and TikTok vlogs and GRWMs. The Y2K bedroom set expresses an unabashed embrace of culture typically deemed feminine (and usually also vapid, for that reason); millennial viewers can recognize it from their own upbringings, and younger generations from depictions on-screen. The background mosaic says something about who the host is, and also who their followers are likely, too. But, Tran says: "It’s important to note that these backgrounds default to suburban, middle-class, white-coded, American-coded settings. And very idealized ones. I think these nostalgic responses, these middle-class fantasies are a way of harmonizing those class differences."

Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper tapped the designer behind her L.A. mansion renovation to redo her podcast studio twice since 2023 (top). Khloé Kardashian launched her Dear Media podcast Khloé in Wonder Land in 2025; it records from a Calabasas studio (left). The at-home set where influencers (and friends to the Kardashians) Victoria Villarroel and Stas Karanikolaou record their Better Half podcast splits the difference between Cooper’s hyperfeminine backdrop and Kardashian’s luxe but minimal one (right).

Left to right: Khloé in Wonder Land via Youtube; Call Her Daddy via Youtube; Better Half with Stas & Vic via Youtube

See the full story on Dwell.com: Your Favorite Podcast Wants to Make You Feel at Home

Do Plywood Interiors Hold Up?

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 4 Sep 2026 10:56:27 -0700

The material can discolor and is hard to patch. We spoke with architects who used it in projects covered by Dwell to find out how they’re looking now.

Plywood has been a staple of modernist design since the 1940s, when American architects began transforming it into Dri-Bilt homes. Today, it lines houses around the world from ceiling to floor, as architects take full advantage of its ease of manufacturing, flexible structure, and distinctive grain. And while its aesthetic appeal has lasted almost a century, it’s not the first material that comes to mind when considering durability. But, as we found out, those who’ve worked with the materials themselves beg to differ.

For a ground-up, net-zero house in the L.A. neighborhood of Highland Park, Project Room principal Isaac Resnikoff and his in-laws at Louis Wasserman & Associates made a complete family home from plywood—floors, ceilings, custom furniture, walls, the lot. For those wondering if the material can stand up to the rigors of daily life with young children, good news: "We moved in about August 2019," Resnikoff says, "and over the seven years, it’s held up very well: durable and beautiful." In constructing their two-bedroom, two-bathroom "Unfinished House" in Tiny, Ontario, Workshop Architects relied on raw plywood almost exclusively. "The plywood on walls, ceiling and mezzanine floors was sanded and finished with two coats of Osmo Natural Oil Woodstain in 701 Clear Matte," says principal Helena Grdadolnik. "They typically say to refinish it every three to five years in areas that aren’t high use, but it has been almost five years and it doesn’t look like it needs it." Though, of course, the fact that the vacation house being unoccupied for part of the year doesn’t hurt with the wear and tear.

The color of the plywood in Atelier—Heyman Hamilton’s cabin aged between 2023 (left) and 2025 (right).

Left to right: Photo by Andy Liffner; Photo by Andrew van Leeuwen

What worked in the dry climate of northeast Los Angeles and the woodsy bays of Ontario was equally right in southeast Sweden, where Atelier—Heyman Hamilton renovated a 1970s cabin with pine plywood for use as a weekend home. Three years of Nordic weather later, "No repairs have been made, and no sheets have been replaced," reports co-founder James Hamilton. "The key is specifying the right quality of plywood. In Sweden, BB/X pine plywood is a few steps below furniture grade, has no knots or defects on one side, and is cost-effective."

The material lasts. Its original hue may not. "We knew it would darken and age unevenly over time, with areas exposed to direct sunlight changing faster than those in the shade," says Hamilton. "This uneven aging process was a specific quality we were interested in exploring." Resnikoff anticipated a shift, too. "We wanted wood that would not yellow with time, and of course that’s kind of impossible," he says. A lacquer with a bit of white pigment helps mitigate that. "There’s definitely a little bit of yellowing, but it’s not that dramatic! And it’s a satin finish, which feels really nice."

Of course running your hands across the satin plywood has an effect, over time, never mind the more constant wear and tear of family life. Resnikoff has noticed the floors take it the hardest. "It’s a softer floor than you might normally have, so it’s going to get dinged. We have two stools by the kitchen island, and their feet dig the floor a little bit. I think it has almost a hammered patina. When we did it, we thought in ten years we’d probably have to replace it. We don’t feel like that’s inevitable, at this point." Hamilton has also been impressed with the appearance of aging. "Because the cabin is a weekend home, surface wear could even be left intentionally unattended to allow for an uneven, character-rich aging process where areas with rubbed-off finish darken faster."

Differences in the "Unfinished House" are minimal between 2024 (left) and a recent photo (right). The wood hasn’t required refinishing in the nearly five years since it was installed.

Left to right: Photo by Scott Norsworthy; Photo courtesy Helena Grdadolnik

There’s patina, however, and then there’s punctures. In the "Unfinished House" Grdadolnik had to relocate the thermostat from the main floor to the warmer mezzanine. "That left a small hole in the wall where the wires attached," she says. That was an easy fix, but it taught her to be careful. "Plywood is less forgiving than drywall, it can’t be patched or replaced without being noticeable," she says. "So plan any lighting, wall switches, and equipment in advance, and think twice before cutting holes in the wall."

That’s assuming you’re seeking a book-matched effect. If so, designers recommend purchasing extra panels and lacquering them alongside the pieces that’ll be used for construction, so that they’ll age together. "We selected a spruce plywood finish with a very strong pattern that came as a bunk from a mill, so the patterns match. If in the future we would need to replace a sheet on a wall or in the ceiling, it would be hard to match and the difference could be noticeable," Grdadolnik says. "You see other interiors using clear birch plywood, which has less personality, but would be easier to replace with a similar look."

Time has given Isaac Resnikoff’s home a slight yellowing, as seen in photos from 2021 (left) and 2024 (right).

Left to right: Photo by José Mandojana; Photo by Emanuel Hahn

See the full story on Dwell.com: Do Plywood Interiors Hold Up?
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Budget Breakdown: A Tiny Red Addition Adds a Radical Amount of Utility for a Family of Four

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 4 Sep 2026 09:56:32 -0700

South of Prague, the 210-square-foot extension creates one open, fluid living space that’s flush with built-in seating and storage.

In 2017, Zuzana Fuhrmannova and her partner, Tomas Binder, began renting a small house in Nečín, a village in the Czech Republic’s Central Bohemian region about 25 miles south of Prague. Zuzana, a property manager who works from home about once a week, had been looking for a suitable place to raise her then two young sons from a previous marriage. She found out about the rental, an approximately 1,146-square foot weekend cabin, through an acquaintance and reached out to the owner. They settled on an unusual agreement: instead of paying rent, they would partially renovate the house.

"We cleared it out, converted the attic into living space, put in a kitchen, and made other minor improvements," says Tomas, who works mostly from home in online marketing. "The renovation was done on a very tight budget, with only the absolute essentials so that the four of us could somehow live there."

Zuzana Fuhrmannova and Tomas Binder bought a cabin they had been renting and expanded it with a red addition, designed and constructed by Facha Architekti.

Photo by Peter Fabo

A few years later, the couple decided to make an offer on the home. It took a year to convince the owner to sell—"he had an emotional attachment to the house," Tomas says—but they closed in 2020. As it was now the family of four's permanent home, they called on Prague studio Facha Architekti for another round of improvements. "They wanted to create a home that would support everyday family living and working from home, while keeping operating costs as low as possible," says Matej Nepustil, one of the four architects who make up Facha. "They also wanted the house to be a welcoming place to host gatherings with family and friends."

Facha enlarged the main living space, relocated the entrance, and enhanced the connection to the garden, all of which was achieved by adding a bold, red extension to the west side of the house. "We liked the original volume of the house and did not want to redefine it," says Nepustil. "The extension was conceived as a clearly legible addition, deliberately distinguishable from the older building."

Clad in corrugated metal, it expands the home by more than 200 square feet with a new entrance and living space, and connects with the yard via wide steps and a deck. A floor-to-ceiling slider was one of the more expensive elements of the project.

Photo by Peter Fabo

A red awning reaches down to the deck to provide complete shade to the interiors.

Photo by Peter Fabo

See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: A Tiny Red Addition Adds a Radical Amount of Utility for a Family of Four

There’s a Handmade Touch at Every Turn in This Craftsperson’s Vermont Cabin

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 3 Sep 2026 06:56:27 -0700

Ally Silberkleit channeled her obsession with tinkering into a bespoke three-level home.

Ally Silberkleit, a woodworker, likes to keep her hands busy. "For most of my adult life, I would come home from work and if I was watching TV or relaxing, I would need to either be carving a spoon or a hairpin or knitting or doing something while I’m sitting there," she says. This devotion to craft is at the heart of the home she built in northern Vermont, a 1,300-square-foot, gable-sided cabin that put her skills to the test and taught her many new ones, too. "I love making and learning, and the house is really designed around that," she says.

For a long time, Ally dreamed of building her own home. Nearly seven years ago she finally took the leap. She spent two months in Japan learning traditional woodworking and carpentry skills. Then she attended Yestermorrow, a design/build school, where she earned a certificate in residential design and construction and began sketching a house. After finding what she describes as a "very calm and magical" tree-covered plot in rural Vermont in 2021, she commissioned Andy White, the instructor in her Yestermorrow course and founder of the studio Boreal Design, to turn her initial concept for a small home with a loft into a real building on a real site.

See the full story on Dwell.com: There’s a Handmade Touch at Every Turn in This Craftsperson’s Vermont Cabin
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How Little Trees Goes Big to Protect Its Trademark Symbol

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 2 Sep 2026 08:56:40 -0700

For such a utilitarian object, the pine-shaped, scented cutout holds a surprisingly singular spot in pop culture. The brand has made sure of it.

Not everyone appreciates the bracing perfume wafting from a cardboard tree air freshener named Black Ice, Vanillaroma, or New Car Scent—I know I don’t. But while I would strongly prefer to avoid breathing in a heavily scented object hanging from a car’s rear view mirror, I can’t help but love the instantly recognizable look of a Little Trees cutout.

To this day, Little Trees remains the leader of the pack among car freshener brands, and their unique shape has become a cultural phenomenon. It’s a piece of Americana, a collector’s item, and a visual shorthand for smell. But if you’re a brand and think, maybe we could riff on that a little—say, put a tree on a T-shirt or key ring—think again: Little Trees is known for suing those who infringe on its trademark, and the brand usually wins. We’re free to feel our feelings about Little Trees, but the shape, that’s on lock.

Little Trees is the property of Car-Freshner Corporation, a third-generation family firm headquartered in Watertown, New York. The whiff stretches back to 1952 when a milk truck driver complained about the stench of spilled milk to Julius Sämann, a German-Jewish chemist who’d fled Europe during the Nazi occupation. Two years later, Sämann filed a patent for cardboard with "odor-destroying, air-perfuming substances"—the initial version was a pinup lady before he settled on the now-famous pine tree. It was mostly for practical reasons, as a conifer makes it easier to peel back the wrapper slowly, branch by branch, to prolong the smell for up to seven weeks.

Royal Pine was the first fragrance, followed quickly by Spice and Bouquet. As drivers across the country took to this practical solution to an unpleasant tang, the company wasted no time expanding the range. Many have been fruity and spicy, like Cinnamon Apple, Moroccan Mint Tea, and Lavender, while others more ambiguous like Pure Steel, Heat, and Supernova. Today, Little Trees are sold all over the world, in parts of Europe known as Wunder-Baum or Arbre Magique, making the dangling tree an internationally recognized fix for terrible odors everywhere.

There are more than 30 classic Little Trees scents, each with different imagery on the same trademark shape.

Photo by Jammer Gene via Adobe Stock

But it’s the shape we love. "I have one that smells like surfboard wax. It hasn’t had a smell coming from it in months, but I still like seeing it flopping from the rear view when I have the windows down," says Jason Kress, cofounder and creative director of Washington, D.C., design agency Clever, and self-described "car guy." Kress thinks Little Trees are a mainstay in car culture: "It’s almost like a badge of honor that you wear, down to the type of Little Tree you hang from your mirror." Kress says the "masculine, cologne-smelling" Black Ice is especially popular among Honda drivers, a group he used to belong to before he moved on to VWs and Audis, whose drivers he says are more into Piña Colada, which is "more of a fashion statement."

There are currently 33 classic Little Trees to choose from, with thriving forums of collectors on TikTok and Reddit who hunt for rare special releases and discontinued scents. Kress says he’s seen up to "fifty or so stacked [in cars], as a tongue-in-cheek flex." While he points out there are a lot more elegant (and frankly, better-smelling) car fresheners on the market, Kress thinks Little Trees appeals with its cheerful simplicity and low price: "That amount of joy for a dollar, that’s a pretty good deal! There’s so much variety, so you can make a statement with that dollar."

The ubiquitousness of Little Trees might fool us into thinking we’re at liberty to make our own uses for it. But if you’re a brand tempted to tap in on its symbolism you will soon feel the wrath of Big Tree. When fashion house Balenciaga made a Little Trees–shaped keychain in 2018, it charged $275 for a leather trinket with a nod to retro Americana—and Little Trees sued for trademark infringement. The year after, the company served European budget airline RyanAir for using its image to advertise the airline’s car rental service. Dog toy maker Chewy was informed in 2021 that the pine is not for sharing, and two years ago, Meta was put on notice for failing to take down infringing posts from third parties selling stickers and T-shirts carrying the Little Trees trademark.

Angela Langlotz, a trademark lawyer operating out of Dallas, Texas, remembers the green tree hanging from the dashboard knob of her aunt’s Ford Mustang when she was a child—this is the kind of "intangible goodwill" that Little Trees has built over decades and is keen to control. "I think Little Trees have been appropriately aggressive," says Langlotz, suggesting that they’re just protecting what’s theirs. A trademark is meant to be an exclusive identifier, she explains, so if you let things slide to the point where people no longer associate your brand with your company, you could actually end up losing your trademark rights.

That means when Old Navy puts your trademark on a T-shirt emblazoned with "Keeping it Fresh," it may be best to nip things in the bud—at least that seems to be Little Trees’ attitude. "Then, pretty soon, you get a reputation for being a formidable enforcer of your trademark rights, and people just leave you alone," says Langlotz. This may explain why Little Trees doesn’t just go after large corporations; in 2016, the company sued a nonprofit called Sun Cedar, which helps at-risk individuals get back on their feet, for making a tree-shaped cedar ornament, and two years later, it informed the Bob Ross merchandising company that regardless of how Ross telling viewers to paint "happy little trees" to cover their mistakes, there would be only one diminutive arboreal in town.

Little Trees’ journey from smell peddler to cultural icon has benefited from some memorable pop culture endorsements. "You’ll find one in every car. You’ll see."—that’s the famous line from the 1984 cult sci-fi black comedy Repo Man, which was ultimately a teardown of ’80s consumerism but did a lot to tighten the brand’s associations with American car culture by placing its products in various scenes. "That film is a big part of why some car people are obsessed with Little Trees, sometimes in an ironic hipster way," says Phil Greden, an automotive journalist whose pen name is Murilee Martin. Greden has taken over 10,000 photographs of Little Trees in junked cars over the past 18 years, across the U.S. and overseas. "In junkyards in the U.S., probably ninety-five percent of air fresheners are going to be Little Trees," says Greden, explaining that it’s often the Black Ice and New Car scents. "In the Deep South people like the fruitier ones, like Coconut, Watermelon, and Strawberry.... I think because it’s so humid and they need a more powerful scent to mask the mildew." Greden also finds more clusters in hotter areas—he fondly recalls what he calls the "Charlotte Stack," named for the thick decks of Little Trees air fresheners he saw hanging from the rear view mirrors of many cars in a North Carolina wrecking yard—whereas in dry areas, like his hometown of Denver, Colorado, cars usually have just the one.

The vapors can get overwhelming pretty fast. Little Trees actually provided unscented props to save the noses of the Repo Man film crew, and overly perfumed rideshares are such a common complaint that Lyft has started offering fragrance-free rides as a premium option. When Greden was an official at 24 Hours of Lemons, an endurance race for cars bought for $500 or less, one of the penalties for misbehaving drivers included hanging 50 Little Trees air fresheners inside their cars. "You could smell it as they drove by at a hundred miles an hour," he says. "It was awful." Greden likes to hang his own Little Trees outside for six months to get the odor out, and then enjoy them more as decor.

Despite the brand’s eagerness to defend its trademark, the company behind Little Trees doesn’t seem too concerned about what people say about it. My request for an interview with a representative was politely rebuffed by Nikki in consumer relations, who only remarked that the company "recognize[s] the unique role that LITTLE TREES has played both within the air freshener category and in popular culture over the years." They hardly ever seem to talk to the press—the rare exceptions being when Jody LaLone, the former longtime president of Car-Freshner Corporation, told the New York Times in 2012 that they’d sold billions of units, "Probably right up there with the number of hamburgers McDonald’s sells," and in 2014, when U.K. car dealer Arnold Clark interviewed the brand’s European sales and marketing director who compared the secrecy around Little Trees’s scent recipes to that of Coca-Cola.

Meanwhile, Little Trees occupies our cultural imagination as the car freshener of record, the shape widely celebrated as a classic design. So maybe saying nothing is the smartest move? "Little Trees have been around for so long, I don’t think they need the conversation," says Kress. "They’re doing just fine—their products sell themselves."

Top photo by Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Your House Is Not the Corner Bar...but Does It Need Custom Matchbooks?

How They Pulled It Off: Curved Windows Turn This Minnesota Home Into a Sundial

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 1 Sep 2026 14:56:36 -0700

On a narrow creekside lot in the Twin Cities, CityDeskStudio built a multigenerational home with lifted rooflines, curved plaster ceilings, and custom windows to draw light deep into the interior.

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

When a Minnesotan woman had the opportunity to move back into the 1950s home where she grew up with her three sisters, she realized that it wasn’t the house that she wanted to revisit, but the land it stood on.

The property had stayed in the family, but the house was small and rundown. It certainly wasn’t suitable for the "forever home" the woman envisioned sharing with her husband and sister, who would also be living with them. The family approached Ben Awes, founder of Saint Paul-based architecture practice CityDeskStudio, to create a home that would support them into retirement but also provide a layout for two family units.

Set low into the site for easy access, the house reads as modest from the street—an age-in-place home with an elevator that "sits very beautifully, nested right into the ground," says architect Ben Awes.

Photo: Dwell Creative Services

The couple wanted a single-level home they could age into, with a separate apartment for the wife’s sister, a home office for him, and an art studio for her. Beyond these more practical considerations, the husband requested that the home have what he described as "lift."

"He’s a bit of an architecture fan and has always loved Louis Khan, and said to me early in the process that all great architecture has lift," says Awes. "And, so he hopes that his house has lift."

The 4,200-square-foot home, aptly named Crescendo, features lifted rooflines rising in sequence across the plan.

Photo: Dwell Creative Services

The primary challenge was the narrow lot, which is deep and angled toward the west, with the Minnehaha Creek view concentrated along one edge. Rather than line the rooms up along a single side, Awes set one living area, the dining room, and the kitchen in the center of the plan as an interior core. This is then flanked with the owners’ bedroom suite on one side and the studio and office on the other.

The living area, dining area, and kitchen sit at the heart of the plan—an interior core with no exterior walls of its own, lit instead from above through the lifted roof.

Photo: Dwell Creative Services

See the full story on Dwell.com: How They Pulled It Off: Curved Windows Turn This Minnesota Home Into a Sundial
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I Tested a Little Electric Grill at My Neighborhood’s Biggest Party of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 1 Sep 2026 13:56:39 -0700

My big barbecue is a dream for everyday use, but I was curious if a plug-in alternative could help me bring hot dogs that are just as satisfying to any place with an outlet.

A lifelong city-dweller, it’s only been later in life that I’ve been able to appreciate the luxury of having storage for extra options. The kind of basic luxury that is, instead of owning a certain number of towels because that’s all you have space for, you have a closet where you can keep an alternate set.

Last year, I wrote about the experience of getting and testing a big Kahuna grill, which has most certainly changed my life for the better. But of course, the flip side of a big grill, no matter how nice it is, is that it’s mostly stuck wherever you park it, despite the wheels. There are numerous other grilling situations it doesn’t work for, and in my family, there happens to be one that comes up every year—our annual block party, where all our neighbors bring out their grills to the front of their houses to cook and hang out. (There’s also two insane bounce houses and a DJ playing music louder than is probably safe for human ears, but I digress.)

Our new gas grill, parked in the back of the house, was not going to work for such a task. I’d avoided this issue last year by moving the falling-apart-but-still-works propane grill that had been left behind in our backyard to the front, cooking on it for the block party, and then leaving it there and posting on Facebook Marketplace that it was free for the taking. (It was gone within a few days, rusted out bottom and all.) But this year, I decided I’d look into a more portable solution for yes, specifically and potentially just this one event above all else, but maybe there would be other possible uses for it down the line. (Camping, which I could always get into.) Again, the privilege storage gives you.

Kenyon’s City Grill is compact and sleek.

Photo via Kenyon

I wanted electric, to avoid the size, space, and logistical issues of propane and charcoal, and because they are easy to put on a countertop, or, in this case, a jerry-rigged table out of sawhorses and an old slab of stone that had also been left behind for us to do what we wanted with. That’s when I happened upon Kenyon’s very literally named City Grill. It seemed as easy to use as possible, so I got in touch with the company, and they sent off a sample to me to try out.

The Test

Kenyon is a Connecticut-based company that got its start in making ceramic glass cooktops for boats, later moving into RVs and more residential applications. They say their patented design makes most of their grills ideal for indoor and outdoor use, because they are "flame free" and "smokeless." Per their website: "We’ve designed the bottom side of our cooking grate, and griddle to have a channel in which the heating element is concealed directly underneath the grate/griddle. This placement allows for even heat transfer from the element to the cooking surface so there is no heat loss (improves efficiency as well). Exposed heating elements are the cause of smoke and flare-ups for electric grills when food drippings hit the element so the concealed element eliminates the possibility of flare-ups and allows for smoke-free grilling." The City Grill retails for $695, which isn’t cheap, if you’re paying for it which I wasn’t, but it is the cheapest of their grill options, which come in portable and stationary. It’s also extremely easy to use; it’s literally an aluminum grate that lifts up to reveal the heating element, under which is a drip pan to catch the drippings. Once you plug in the grill, there is one knob to turn it on and adjust the temperature. That’s it!

The grill was packed snug in its box upon arrival.

Photo courtesy Kate Dries

The City Grill arrived quickly, within a few days of placing my order actually, in a very large box with a lot of styrofoam to cushion it so it wouldn’t slide around. Though it’s less than two feet long and a little shy of nine inches thick, it’s still fairly heavy at a little under 30 lbs, though not impossible to move, given the point is ease of logistics. Before the party we easily stored it on a low shelf in our kitchen. On G-Day (grill day), we simply took it outside, set it on the table, plugged it in, and that was that. We cooked up nothing more complicated on it than rounds and rounds of hot dogs and buns, but given that it can go up to 550 degrees, I’d happily have tried most anything on it. They tasted just as good—which is to say, totally normal—as any other hot dog. It was also easy to turn off and then quickly turn back on again for another round. It’s not ideal if you’re making a lot of food for a lot of people all at once—batch eating would be ideal, unless it’s just a small party—and I’d say it’s likely best for simpler things, i.e. hot dogs and hamburgers, and not, say, a whole rack of ribs (which really do best in the oven anyway, but I digress).

Hot dogs from the City Grill tasted just as good as hot dogs from a bigger barbecue.

Photo courtesy Kate Dries

See the full story on Dwell.com: I Tested a Little Electric Grill at My Neighborhood’s Biggest Party of the Year

A Sawtooth Roof With Skylights Caps the Living Space of This Melbourne Home

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 1 Sep 2026 10:56:14 -0700

Designed for grandparents who love to host, the residence is divided into quadrants centered around an airy kitchen and dining area.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Architect: Office MI—JI / @office_mi.ji

Footprint: 4,209 square feet

Builder: Dimpat

Structural and Civil Engineer: Keith Long and Associates

Landscape Design: SL.ug Projects

Photographer: Ben Hosking / @benhoskingphotographer

From the Architect: "A new house on a large block, this residence brings the garden inside. Through a planimetric arrangement that separates the differing living styles of its occupants and their loved ones, the house allows for a diversity of spaces, and gathers the extended family centrally when they are around. Responding to the client’s brief for a house and garden they’d live in forever, the courtyard plan addresses light, difference, and long-term accessibility with four separate quadrants of occupation. Each quadrant responds differently to its climatic and programmatic requirements through its roof and aperture design, while the second level ensures the extended family can be housed (when in town) with separate sleeping and entertainment quarters.

"At the foundation of this design is a conceptual framework that believes in the diversity of occupation through the plan and section. Being an artist, a businessperson, and involved grandparents, the two main occupants hold different interests and requirements, while also needing strong collective areas for themselves and their larger family. With the separation of quadrants created by the loose nine-square grid, each part of the house is free to address its programmatic and climatic requirements through openings, outlooks, and roofing profiles, all the while reaffirming the center of both the house and garden (the kitchen) as the collective space for all.

"From a structural and material perspective, the house sticks to the site’s 1918 covenant. All walls and visible roofs were to be tile, brick, or concrete, and the house follows this with double cement block walls on the ground level and cement rendered brick walls on the first level and visible roofs. Separating these two palettes is a band of pale blue steel that provides a continuous detail with a variety of outcome. Able to act as lintel, rain head, awning, and soft boundary, the pale blue PFC encapsulates a MI—JI endeavor: to allow for a lot with little.

"Several decisions over the course of the design provided the project with a sure sustainable grounding. All available roof space is taken up with PV panels connected to a battery storage system and car charging facilities. While gas has been disconnected from the site completely, heating and cooling is powered by an electric heat pump system and those same PV panels. The effectiveness of this PV system is increased with the form of the building, which places the double-story portion of the house on the south to minimize overshadowing and ensure the scale of the building in its most used areas (on the north) remains human.

"Integral to the successful outcome of A Courtyard House was DIMPAT, the contractor, whose high-quality carpentry was delivered with precision; and SL.ug Projects, the landscape architect, who’s careful consideration of the client’s request for variety helped establish the garden as a major factor of the house while also diligently adhering to future proof the whole site as wheelchair accessible with flush finish thresholds and wide paths (inside and outside the house)."

Photo: Ben Hosking

See the full story on Dwell.com: A Sawtooth Roof With Skylights Caps the Living Space of This Melbourne Home
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A Pink Stair With an Atrium and Bookshelves Revives This 1930s Mexico City Home

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 14:56:16 -0700

The new double-height entry reimagines an original curving stair that had been lost to a prior renovation.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Architect: ZDA / @z_da

Footprint: 4,627 square feet

Structural Engineer: Deltion Ingenieria

Civil Engineer: Smith Tecnologia Aplicada

Landscape Design: Hugo Sanchez Paisaje and Dealer de Plantas

Lighting Design: LSBA Studio

Interior Design: Amaya Ducru

Photographer: Rafael Gamo / @rafaelgamo

From the Architect: "Located in Lomas de Chapultepec, Casa Kiki is the renovation of a California-style residence originally built in 1937. The project proposes an intervention seeking to respect the historical character and architectural language of the area. From this standpoint, the program is reconfigured through a contemporary spatial logic focused on use and comfort. The entire house was conceived to maintain a direct relationship with the patios, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.

"A central element of the project is the turret located at the heart of the house, which functions as both the main entrance and a distribution space. This volume originally featured a curved staircase and a double-height space that gave it strong spatial quality. However, during a 1970 renovation, the double height was closed off and the staircase was modified. Today, this volume acts as an entry vestibule while connecting to the second level where the private areas are located. The turret becomes the most iconic and representative space of the project by concentrating multiple functions: vestibule, library, and reception area, while organizing the main circulation paths. Its unique character is defined by the use of pink, which envelops the volume and clearly differentiates it from the rest of the house. After more than 50 tests and with the guidance of a color expert, a tone was chosen from what the space demanded: a warm, welcoming atmosphere that generates an emotional experience. The space recovers the original double height and is organized around the painted steel helical staircase functioning as a sculptural element wrapping around a bookshelf of the same color. This, in turn, operates as a gallery for books and objects integrated organically around the stair. The vestibule is illuminated through a glass skylight. At the center, a myrtle tree emerges from a circular opening in the floor.

"The study connects directly to the living room, an addition built over what was formerly the backyard. This annex to the original ‘L’ plan opens toward both patios. Suspended against a stone wall is a fragment of a steel lattice by Manuel Felguérez, originally created for the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. The living room is conceived as a flexible, everyday space rather than a formal one.

"The house integrates solar panels, hydronic radiant floor heating with occupancy sensors, rainwater harvesting and treatment systems, cross ventilation strategies, high-performance glazing, additional roof and wall insulation, and preserved thick brick walls that provide thermal mass. A covered carport prepared for electric vehicle charging was added. The project emphasizes material reuse and recycled wood in exterior areas."

Photo: Rafael Gamo

See the full story on Dwell.com: A Pink Stair With an Atrium and Bookshelves Revives This 1930s Mexico City Home
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How Realtors Are Really Using AI in the Age of "Real Estate Slop"

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:56:33 -0700

Homeseekers are increasingly calling out listings as deceptive "housefishing"—and some professionals agree, even as they’re tapping the technology to streamline other parts of their jobs.

When Pasadena, California–based realtor Pilar Oliva was having trouble convincing a client to lower the price of a home they were selling, she asked Claude for help.

The home in question was on a corner lot facing a somewhat busy street, and while Oliva had pulled a solid comp from a home down the street when they initially priced it for sale, the market had shifted and buyers weren’t biting. Meanwhile, the clients had found their new dream home in a neighborhood they liked better and were debating whether they should use a HomeLight bridge loan to purchase the property or lower the price on their home enough that they’d be able to quickly turn it around. The bridge loan required them to sell within 120 days and would put them on the hook for the full asking price, regardless of what they sold for, but dropping the price by almost $200,000—from $1.49 million to $1.299 million, the amount the market now dictated—felt like an insult.

Oliva decided to use Claude to build two financial models: One that would show what the homeowners would net or end up owing if they lowered the price and sold it themselves and one that showed what it could ultimately cost them if they opted for HomeLight. The client only wanted to spend $40,000 out of pocket either way, so Oliva asked the AI assistant to create manipulatable HTML models where she could fuss with various prices and offers. She toggled switches on and off, checked and double checked the math, and spent hours getting to a point where she felt she could trust the AI’s work. "It worked the hardest I ever worked," Oliva says, noting that all this went down while she was en route to a family wedding in France. "I was in my father-in-law’s car in the middle of the night, on my laptop, using the models to put together rebuttals and trying to convince them that they’d be making a wrong decision if they let HomeLight buy their property."

It worked, fortunately, and after a price reduction, the home ended up selling for $1.4 million, just $90,000 less than the original asking price. Oliva’s clients were happy, the new buyer was happy, and Oliva and her team had created a financial tool they could use again and again, should similar situations arise. "I’m a realtor, so I’m just using AI to fill in my gaps," Oliva says. "I’m not a writer and I don’t build financial models for a living, so I ask it to do what I can’t."

With 82 percent of U.S. real estate professionals now reportedly using AI in their everyday work, Oliva certainly isn’t alone. Ines Hegedus-Garcia, co-owner and managing partner of Avanti Way Realty in Miami, says her company is using AI "at every level, from workflows to analyzing data to helping agents come up with text that makes sense for their clients." Only some of the agents Dwell spoke to talked about struggling with the ethics of AI or the potential environmental impact; instead most seemed almost resigned to using it, if only to keep up with their competitors. "As a realtor, the choice is narrow," says Oliva. "The industry runs on dinosaur-era tech like the MLS and Zipforms, but we are simultaneously flooded with shiny new software. I can compete without AI but the time it saves me is invaluable. I hate the footprint it leaves, but the efficiency makes it impossible to look away."

"When an agent gets a listing, there’s [always been] a very specific process," Hegedus-Garcia says. "They get the listing signed. They have to order signs. They have to order marketing. They have to put the For Sale sign on the house. There’s a process that every agent follows. But if you can get AI involved, then you can create a system where, as soon as you get a listing, it automatically orders the sign or orders someone to put it on the property. That kind of automation just makes an agent more efficient."

Realtors make their money by dealing with clients, Hegedus-Garcia says, and so the more busywork that can be freed up to let a realtor be there to hold a buyer’s hand during negotiations or show them additional properties, the better. And buyers do want that human touch, rather than feeling "like they’re being talked to by a robot," says Kati Spaniak, a realtor working in the Chicago suburbs. "Buyers want personalized attention, especially knowing that their agent is making thousands of dollars a transaction. I think there could be an issue soon where agents start realizing they’re using it too much and buyers start feeling less connected."

"You can say ‘Hey, ChatGPT, please don’t change the floorboards,’ and it’ll change the view out the window or put a cow in the corner."

Buyers frequently have difficulty imagining the potential a space could have; after all, that’s why real-life staging is a robust business of its own. Most of the real estate agents interviewed for this story said they’ve used AI design tools to help clients envision how their style might look in a home they were considering or to help identify architectural features in a listing, like a vintage tile’s potential maker or what you might call a certain kind of column. (Zillow, it’s worth noting, has already integrated on-site AI-driven listing enhancement features, including staging help.) Libby McKinney Tritschler, a realtor from Connecticut, described helping a client visualize what a deck might look like on a home they were considering, saying, "We went to the backyard, took a picture, and asked AI, ‘Can you show us some pictures of back porches and what kind of pricing we might be looking at?’ Three and a half minutes later, we had three different options with three different prices, all of which gave my buyers confidence in buying the house because they knew that, when they were ready, they could afford to make the upgrades."

On the flip side, sellers and realtors can go too far when it comes to altering listing photos, however, with more and more buyers bemoaning AI-staging of homes in listing photos as a deceptive practice in countless stories and online threads. (Online, it’s often called "housefishing" or decried as "AI real-estate slop.") New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has even moved to make listing sites and agents disclose when they’ve used digitally altered images, telling the press, "You shouldn’t have to worry about whether the apartment you are viewing online is real."

While there’s an argument to be made that virtual staging has been used for years in real estate listings—and that even physical staging is akin to making plain old cornflakes look a little better on a cereal box by throwing some strawberries on top for the photo—AI has certainly made tweaking listing photos a little easier, even if it does always add what licensed real estate salesperson Suzanne Goldklang calls "the same beige bedspread." Goldklang says it takes her about two hours to turn a single photo of a cluttered living room into something presentable using AI, though other realtors Dwell spoke to and elsewhere have claimed it can be done in minutes. "It’s because you’re having to do it through prompts," Goldklang says. "You can say ‘Hey, ChatGPT, please don’t change the floorboards,’ and it’ll change the view out the window or put a cow in the corner."

"Buying a home is emotional, and when buyers get to a home, one little thing can make them feel that it isn’t right," says Spaniak. Walking optimistically into an open house and realizing it’s been poorly or deceptively staged using AI is, as one agent said anonymously, "like the difference between watching porn and being with a real woman."

That doesn’t mean there aren’t companies out there trying to help realtors modify their photos in a more seamless way. AutoReel, for instance, lets realtors upload up to 20 photos of their listing, which it then blends into a video tour of the home. Alok Gupta, the company’s cofounder and CEO, says that over 75,000 real estate professionals around the world have used AutoReel’s service to date, making more than 200,000 listing videos.

"My staff was like, ‘it looks like AI,’ but I said, ‘I’m not a newscaster, so is it cheating?’"

AutoReel can turn a photographer’s drone photos into a home flyover, restage a room in a more visually pleasing way, or even remove clutter from a shot, too. Users can digitally watermark everything they make to note it’s been created with AI if they’d like, but most real estate sites don’t require it. (There’s no national MLS standard for disclosure of AI-generated or enhanced imagery, though some states like California and Wisconsin passed new laws, and other states like Texas and New York have general advisories or MLS rules. Meanwhile, a Zillow blog post about the company’s AI-enhanced listing standards says it "supports clear disclosure when AI is used to materially alter a listing image" but also that "agents and brokers carry front-line responsibility for accuracy.") AutoReel accounts can be shared across real estate teams, meaning that a small group of agents could divvy up access to something like the company’s $90 per month "Growth" plan that includes 100 videos a year. "You can create a video in five or ten minutes for less than it costs to go to Chipotle," Gupta says. "With traditional video, the cost for one could be anywhere from $700 to $1,000." Some real estate photographers are also opting to add AutoReel to their sales packages, perhaps adding $90 to an overall cost but providing a video that can be used everywhere from Zillow to social media.

Some real estate agents are using AI not just to market their homes but also their local stomping grounds. Patrick Southern, a realtor with Serhant in New Jersey, says he’s used an AI service called Rayloom to create a virtual newscaster version of himself, which he’s dubbed "Pat AI." Southern uses his AI avatar to relay positive news stories about his region on his Instagram page, like "Hoboken waterfront restaurant named one of best in country," or "Loew’s theater coming back to life this fall." The talking heads look and sound like other videos Southern has posted of himself, but they’re relatively low cost to make ($699 for a dozen per month) and average between 100,000 and 200,000 views each. "When I got pitched on it [by Rayloom’s owner], I was like, I think it’s a good idea but I’m not sure," Southern says. "My staff was like, ‘it looks like AI,’ but I said, ‘I’m not a newscaster, so is it cheating?’ How is this any different than giving potential clients a really great email blast?"

Southern says it’s all in service of bettering the client experience, noting that he always adds a disclaimer in the caption when a video he posts uses his AI-generated faux-likeness. "AI isn’t the superhero," he says. "It’s really the utility belt. It’s all what you make of it."

Marah Eakin is currently reporting a follow-up piece on how AI is changing the homebuying process for prospective owners and sellers. Do you have an experience to share? Reach out.

Biohacking Has Come for Our Homes

Before & After: It Was a Grocery Store, a Dance Hall, and a Factory. Here’s How It Became a Home

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:56:24 -0700

"I would walk past it going, ‘What is going on in this building?’" says one of the homeowners. "Next thing you know, we’re the proud owners of a very old warehouse in really terrible condition."

For years, a San Francisco couple—an educator and arts administrator—would walk past this Mission District building and wonder. For starters, it was massive, with a flat facade jutting right up to the sidewalk—but there were no street-level windows to provide clues as to what could be inside. One of the two front doorways was set into an alcove, where the walls were painted a deep crimson, and a red lightbulb blinked 24 hours a day. "I would walk past it going, ‘What is going on in this building?’" recalls one of the new owners. "Knowing San Francisco’s history of craziness and social experiments, it seemed possible it could be something."

As a matter of fact, the building did have a long local history before the couple bought it. Constructed in 1875, it started out as an Italian grocery store (with a warehouse in back) that was known for hosting ice cream socials for the community church. Then it became a dance hall and an upholstery factory, before an artist bought it in the 1970s to use as a studio space and a home where they raised their kids. Over time, that artist moved out, and it became a collective of art studios.

When that owner passed away, it was time for their children to sell, and the building was not in great shape. "The city wanted to tear it down," says the new owner. The heirs were inundated with offers from developers, but they wanted to pass the building on to people who could appreciate it for the neighborhood fixture it had long been. "We basically were like, ‘Hey, we’re a family in the neighborhood. We work here and our kids go to school here.’ So, he turned down the other offers and took ours," says the owner. "Next thing you know, we’re the proud owners of a very old warehouse in really terrible condition."

Before: Exterior

Before: An educator and an arts administrator had lived in San Francisco’s Mission District neighborhood for about 15 years when they bought this derelict warehouse threatened by demolition in 2020. They worked with Red Dot Studio to turn it into a home. "They thought of it as them being the next generation of bringing the building forward," says architect Karen Curtiss.

Courtesy of Red Dot Studio

After: Front Door

In a nod to the building’s previous incarnation, the front door is painted Benjamin Moore Fireball Orange.

Photo by Helynn Ospina

The pair hired their friend of 10 years, architect Karen Curtiss, principal of Red Dot Studio, for the ensuing remodel. When Curtiss visited the building, she was impressed by how the flat facade gave way to a multifaceted interior filled with chaotic angles and color. There were wonderful features, like the soaring roof trusses. But also, plant matter was growing through walls.

"You don’t get volumes of space like this in a residential property in San Francisco," says Curtiss, who promptly told her friends: "This is so good, and we’re going to have to do everything." For their part, the couple went into the renovation process without reservation. "We definitely knew what we were getting into and that it would be a lot of work," the owner says. "But at the same time, we just thought the space was magical."

Before: Interior

Before: The warehouse had an existing garage door that opened to the backyard.

Courtesy of Red Dot Studio

See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: It Was a Grocery Store, a Dance Hall, and a Factory. Here’s How It Became a Home
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Why India Is Reviving Ancient Water Systems—and Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:56:28 -0700

C-list influencers are getting into real estate, the Paris Prize returns, and more.

As India’s modern water systems run dry, communities are looking to a traditional fix: restoring ancient stepwells, ponds, and earthen dams known as johads. (BBC)

Private chefs, contractors, plumbers, and landscapers are bringing their work to social media, with their clients’ luxury homes often serving as the backdrop. Posting can be a great marketing strategy, bringing customers and bigger paychecks, but only when client privacy doesn’t get lost in the frame, so to speak. (The Wall Street Journal)

The Van Alen Institute is reviving its Paris Prize, with a new focus on regenerative design across the postcolonial landscape. Created with the team behind Nairobi’s inaugural Pan-African Biennale, the program will award three designers $35,000 each to research communities shaped by displacement and exclusion. (The Architect’s Newspaper)

California modernist architect Paul Revere Williams is being recognized for his contributions to L.A.’s built environment with three new exhibtions across the city.

Photo by Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The late Paul Revere Williams designed thousands of buildings that shaped Los Angeles, all while navigating racism as California's first licensed Black architect. Now, three new exhibitions are giving the modernist his long overdue recognition. (The Guardian)
Reality TV stars, influencers, and retired athletes are turning their fame and followers into real estate careers. Here why some argue that the jump to selling homes not as much of a stretch as it may seem. (The Atlantic)

Top photo by Frank Bienewald/LightRocket via Getty Images

School Is Always In Session at This Prefab Home in Taiwan

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:56:30 -0700

In a dense part of Kaohsiung City, the residence achieves a sense of openness by facing the sports facilities of an adjacent school yard.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Kaohsiung City, Tai

Architect: Supra-Simplicities / @suprasimplicities

Footprint: 2,580 square feet

Builder: PDCDG

Landscape Design: Temperature Studio

Interior Design: KCCS

Photographer: Shawn Liu Studio Photography / @shawnliustudio

From the Architect: "Located in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, the project occupies the terminus of a narrow dead-end alley, enclosed on three sides by neighboring residences and a school. With only a single point of access, the site is constrained by limited accessibility, daylight, and natural ventilation. In contrast, its adjacency to the school’s sports field introduces an unexpected visual openness, providing a rare spatial relief within the dense urban fabric and becoming the project’s primary environmental asset.

"The proposal replaces an aging two-story reinforced concrete dwelling with a lightweight steel-framed residence for the client's retired mother, while providing flexible accommodation for her two adult children during periodic visits. To minimize displacement, the project adopts a prefabricated construction strategy that shortens the building process and enables rapid reoccupation. Entitled MOM House (Modularized Open Model), the project is conceived as an expandable structural framework composed of repetitive steel grid modules. Designed as an open system rather than a fixed building type, MOM supports changing domestic needs through incremental expansion and spatial reconfiguration while improving fabrication efficiency, simplifying on-site assembly, and extending the building's capacity for long-term adaptation.

"The residence is organized around the daily routines of the retired mother, with the primary living spaces located on the ground floor and directly connected to an internal garden shared with her two children. Guest rooms for the children occupy the upper levels with skylight, while a communal terrace and family lounge are positioned between them, framing unobstructed views toward the adjacent sports field. This vertical sequence transforms the site’s spatial limitations into opportunities for light, openness, and family interaction.

"The prototype consists of eight steel grid modules arranged along a linear axis, interrupted by a single intentionally irregular structural bay. This controlled deviation simultaneously articulates the tectonic expression of the structural system and accommodates rainwater drainage, directing runoff into the garden below, but also as a joint for future extension. By integrating environmental infrastructure within the structural framework, the project embeds performance directly into the architectural language rather than treating it as a concealed technical solution.

"The structural grid extends to the building envelope, which is clad with prefabricated matte-finished aluminum panels. The modular facade reinforces the logic of the construction system while allowing efficient fabrication and future replacement. Its subtly reflective surface responds to changing light, vegetation, and the surrounding neighborhood, softening the building’s visual presence while maintaining a distinct architectural identity."

Photo by Shawn Liu Studio

See the full story on Dwell.com: School Is Always In Session at This Prefab Home in Taiwan
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Dolly Parton Never Left Her Childhood Home Behind. We Shouldn’t Either

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 07:56:33 -0700

The legendary performer didn't run away from her humble beginnings, instead carrying them with her, not as a burden, but as a north star.

Alongside parents, neighbors, and teachers, the houses where we grow up help raise us. The childhood home sets the bar: Part of the ongoing dialogue around the housing crisis stems from young people today who grew up in middle-class suburban tract homes feeling betrayed by the fact that those same homes (and lives) are not attainable to them. Not unrelatedly, some of us spend our lives running away from our housing roots, searching for something entirely different—maybe better, more lavish, or more urban; we go no-contact with the conditions that raised us in hopes that we can build a life that we define for ourselves. Even in rejecting our pasts, the houses of our youth form us.

This is why, in the wake of her death Tuesday, I can’t stop thinking about Dolly Parton’s childhood home. The famed country music star, actress, and philanthropist was brought up alongside her 11 siblings in a one-bedroom cabin among East Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. It’s a place that, at this point in time, approaches a mythology of sorts: She grew up without running water or electricity; the daughter of a field laborer and homemaker, her mother, she told Rolling Stone, made everything by hand—clothes, curtains, bedding. Of course that wasn’t the end of her story—when she died, she was worth around $450 million. While some might choose to see it as a rags-to-riches story, the cliché narrative is too reductive. The house that built Dolly Parton isn’t one that she ran away from, or that made her stardom all the more appealing; rather, it was something that she continued to carry with her, not as a burden, but as a north star.

Dolly Parton performing on stage in 1978.

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images

You can find photos of the house online: a simple building with a pitched roof overhang to provide a covered porch. But most of these photos are actually of a replica built at her Tennessee theme park, Dollywood. There, you can take a short stroll through her history, where a wood-burning stove, kitchen table, and simple cooking accoutrements populate the main room; newsprint and floral papered walls are used for insulation. Some of the replica’s furnishings come from Dolly’s real Sevier County childhood home, which is not open to the public but was renovated by Parton after she purchased it in the 1980s.

Dolly, however, was insistent that this upbringing wasn’t purely poverty; she has referenced a quote from her mother, who, per Rolling Stone, told her as a child that, "We are rich in love and kindness and understanding." Parton’s song "Coat of Many Colors" tells the story of her mother making her a coat from colorful rags and getting made fun of at school for wearing it. "But they didn’t understand it / And I tried to make them see / That one is only poor / Only if they choose to be." Her house, her upbringing, returns again and again in her music, a photo of it even gracing the jacket of her 1973 album My Tennessee Mountain Home. In the title track, she sings of the crickets heard from her porch, children playing—it’s not a place or circumstance of strife but of serenity.

Dolly photographed at Dollywood with her father, Robert, and mother, Avie, in 1987.

Photo by John Seakwood/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

I think of these songs, her love for her childhood home, in a time when American rhetoric repeats bootstrapping tropes, where so much angst is spent on an ideal of "making it." Our collective obsession with abandoning a past self—and past circumstances—has arguably left many generations unmoored, searching for some hint that we’ve attained success. What if, instead, we attempted to go forward and carry those pieces with us? Rather than running away from it, what if we tried to return? It reminds me of a quote from art critic Dave Hickey in Country Music Magazine, where he wrote about Joplin, Missouri, upon seeing Parton perform there in 1974: "It’s one of those places that, no matter where you’re from, you never enter without feeling that you’re coming back to something." I’m not sure if Dolly ever "made it" so much as she has always been coming back to something, each time with a new story, a new way of seeing and singing her home into being.

Top image of Dolly Parton at Dollywood in 1987 by John Seakwood/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

Could the Listening Bar Boom Help Solve Our Need for More Third Spaces?

In Pennsylvania, You Can Scoop Up a Storybook Tudor Manor for $1.2M

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:56:42 -0700

Designed for a luxury shoe magnate, the 1930s home comes with cathedral ceilings, ornate woodwork, diamond-pane windows, and a stately turret.

Location: 1952 Canterbury Road, Abington, Pennsylvania

Price: $1,200,000

Year: 1938

Footprint: 4,328 square feet (5 beds, 5 baths)

Lot Size: 0.93 acres

From the Listing: "This home was built in 1938 for the Laird & Schober Shoes family, the Christian Louboutin of their time. Laird & Schober Shoes was founded in Philadelphia in 1870 and became internationally renowned for crafting luxurious women’s and children’s footwear, winning the grand prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The updated home blends preserved period craftsmanship with modern amenities. From the moment you enter, the defining architectural details reveal themselves: original hardwood floors, exceptional millwork and moldings, stile-and-rail paneled walls, soaring ceilings, handcrafted staircases and banisters, carved woodwork, crystal doorknobs, original light fixtures, and beautiful stonework. Nearly every room enjoys views of the surrounding gardens and mature landscaping. At the exterior, travertine, bluestone, and EP Henry patios and walkways create a series of outdoor living spaces. The finished lower level has its own fireplace and TV. The pool, spa, and outdoor areas are perfect for entertaining. The home offers abundant natural light and storage, tremendous indoor and outdoor living space, timeless character, and an unmistakable sense of warmth."

This Tudor-style home in Abington, Pennsylvania, was built in 1938 for the Laird & Schober Shoes family.

Photo by Kirsti Streahle

See the full story on Dwell.com: In Pennsylvania, You Can Scoop Up a Storybook Tudor Manor for $1.2M
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At an Australian Home Built Into a Cliff, You Enter Via the Footbridge

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 09:56:35 -0700

The two-level masonry residence sits on a rock escarpment looking out over a gorge.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Southern Highlands, New South Wales, Australia

Architect: Bokey Grant / @bokey_grant

Footprint: 1,880 square feet

Builder: Armstrong Residential

Structural Engineer: Structure Consulting Engineers

Photographer: Clinton Weaver / @_clintonweaver

From the Architect: "EA house is a family home built onto a sensitive rock cliff face escarpment in the southern highlands. An experimental house, while simple in form, it solves many overlapping constraints and challenges that exist because of the site, a leftover parcel of land from a suburb that was planned before realizing there was a giant cliff and gorge. Since being deemed unbuildable, the site had been empty.

"The home touches its site purposefully but carefully so as to have no impact on any existing flora and fauna, utilizing the natural typography to its advantage. It has a small footprint that emerges from the rock. A bridge provides both equitable access along with being the conduit for all services to and from the building resulting in minimal impact on the rock escarpment and existing trees.

"Planning is paired back. Public and private areas are opposite, with the living spaces at the lower levels having a closer connection to its site. All spaces are connected by a single loaded corridor that slowly reveals the spatial play of the plan and reveals the site to inhabitants. Stripped of excess, yet rich in sensory and spatial experience. Private and transitional spaces are monastic in concept similar to La Tourette, humbly sized with controlled light and view creating intimate and reflective living. This is contrasted by the lower levels open plan living, dining, and kitchen with larger curated views. Each element is conceived as a piece of furniture arranged in and breaking up the space. A singular materiality cocoons you and connects to this wider site which feels both dramatic and nourishing at the same time. The varied openings offer many different perspectives of the shared outlook."

"The house manages many overlapping technical constraints: Its flame-zone bushfire rating, ecological constraints, energy requirements, geotechnical constraints, and access does so effortlessly. We didn’t have the grace of an unseen elevation—even the roof is visible. The house’s ancillaries and services became a integral part of the design and sculptural proposition. Its materiality is fire-resistant and maintenance-free and recedes into the context. Combined with the significant levels of additional insulation and FZ glazing, the house performs at a very high level passively. This house experiments with a new way of living in the landscape canopy. Its simple element gesture conceals the technical challenges of this project offering a model for housing in a challenging environment."

Photo: Clinton Weaver

See the full story on Dwell.com: At an Australian Home Built Into a Cliff, You Enter Via the Footbridge
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How Little Trees Goes Big to Protect Its Trademark Symbol

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:56:34 -0700

For such a utilitarian object, the pine-shaped, scented cutout holds a surprisingly singular spot in pop culture. The brand has made sure of it.

There are more than 30 classic Little Trees scents, each with different imagery on the same trademark shape.

Photo by Jammer Gene via Adobe Stock

Top photo by Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Your House Is Not the Corner Bar...but Does It Need Custom Matchbooks?

Laminate, Chrome, and Plenty of Curves—How One Vintage Seller Digs Up Floridian Furniture Treasures

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:56:11 -0700

Chaim Romano, who built his brand Dolphin & Flamingo on the "colorful, tropical" aesthetic, tells us how to find the best pieces from the state’s still-popular style.

Welcome to Good Vintage, a series that goes behind the scenes with furniture resellers and dealers to find out how they got their start, where they get their stuff, and what inspires them to keep it up. Know of someone we should talk to? Reach out.

"Our rule of thumb is that it needs to be quintessentially Florida," says Chaim Romano, owner of the Delray Beach-based vintage furniture resell company Dolphin & Flamingo, of how he sources his wide-ranging styles. "There’s the side you see in movies and pop culture: the ’80s pink waterfall stuff, the cocaine-era decor, all that. But before that era, there was a massive amount of midcentury modern, French Provincial, Rococo, and other traditional Italian and French styles. Then there’s the tropical side of Florida, from South Florida all the way up to Jacksonville, which is a lot of rattan, bamboo, wicker, and all the Southeast Asian coastal-inspired stuff."

Romano, a South Florida native, stumbled into the resell industry to satisfy his love of the hunt and to learn more about his home state’s history through the lens of its furniture. ("I’ve never been a hoarder, but I hold onto things that remind me of childhood or something I like," he says.) After finding some success selling furniture on Facebook, realtors began calling him to quickly clean out retirement homes with the incentive that he could keep everything. Romano says the work was intimate, often sad, horrible for his asthma, and that "half of the stuff was garbage, but I was learning that these elder people had refined taste in furniture and decor. Their homes would be loaded with premier stuff from 1992."

When Romano launched his business in 2019, customers knew him as the dealer for "postmodern Art Deco Revival, laminated furniture, the pink waterfalls, and the vibrant pastels, which were abundant," he says, because skilled laborers, many of whom were Cuban immigrants in the Miami-Broward area, helped mass produce these styles while offering customization. "You could walk into a showroom, pick a color, pick some shapes, provide measurements, and they loaded up your whole house affordably. That’s what we kept getting truckloads of. A pink bedroom set wouldn’t last to the weekend, although that style has slowed down quite a bit."

Dolphin & Flamingo proprietor Chaim Romano

Courtesy Chaim Romano

These days, Romano says roughly 90 percent of his inventory comprises the "colorful, tropical stuff" found in retirement communities in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Coral Springs, and the Broward County area—all within 30 minutes from his Delray Beach warehouse. He also stocks a decent amount of antique-looking Asian furniture like lacquered tables accented with Mother of Pearl inlays and illustrated room dividers originating from places like China or Korea. "It’s surprising how much Asian furniture is totally quintessential to South Florida. Antiquity always uplifts a place and it’s beautiful to have in a room," says Romano.

So who’s buying most of this old Floridian furniture? Some of it stays local, but the bulk of Romano’s sales are in the Northeast, Texas, Southern California, and the Midwest. "L.A. is probably our number three market. New York is number one," he says. If you’re a shopper based in a faraway city, it helps to know what you’re getting yourself into when buying online. So here, Romano shares his advice for how customers can get the best value for their buck.

Buy direct for the best prices

Laminate dressers and end tables make up a sizable portion of Romano’s inventory, as do colorful prints and paintings and distinctive lamps.

Courtesy Chaim Romano

Romano lists pieces on resell platforms like Chairish, 1stDibs, and Etsy for discoverability, but if customers are able to take that extra step, Romano recommends they seek out the same piece on the official Dolphin & Flamingo site and buy direct for the best rates. "We’re at the whims of the platforms and have no control over [their fees and shipping structures], but when you go on our website and add something to your cart and put in your zip code, you’re going to get a unique shipping price upfront," he says. "Customers should ask dealers for a shipping price based on location," rather than paying a fixed fee provided by resell platforms.

Resist the single-aesthetic furnish

Courtesy Chaim Romano

See the full story on Dwell.com: Laminate, Chrome, and Plenty of Curves—How One Vintage Seller Digs Up Floridian Furniture Treasures
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Of Course This Renovated Berlin Flat Has a Speaker Setup in Nearly Every Room

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:56:43 -0700

The cones are quietly integrated into sleek millwork units, from living room shelving to a headboard.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Berlin, Germany

Architect: Christopher Sitzler / @christophersitzlerarchitekt

Footprint: 818 square feet

Photographer: Franz Gruenewald / @franzgruenewald

From the Architect: "A 818-square-foot flat in a loft conversion dating from the 1990s has been completely reimagined. Where rooms, woodchip wallpaper, and laminate flooring once dominated, a spacious, light-filled living area now unfolds. The floor plan opens up seamlessly toward the long glazed frontage, uniting the kitchen, dining, and living areas into a single, cohesive zone.

"The dark mahogany-veneered ceiling sets the tone, a material reminiscent of the 1960s that runs like a common thread through all areas. Together with a sand-colored cast floor, this creates a calm, warm color palette reminiscent of Japanese interiors. The kitchen unit, crafted from matte-finish stainless steel, provides a cool contrast and deliberately keeps the wall surface behind it simple.

"In the sleeping area, the restful zone and wet area merge: the bath rests half-recessed on a low platform, with the shower and washbasin concealed behind it. A separate guest bathroom with glossy, reddish-brown tiles in a retro style provides a distinctive accent. A sound system, invisibly integrated into the wooden panelling, rounds out the design."

Photo by Franz Gruenewald

See the full story on Dwell.com: Of Course This Renovated Berlin Flat Has a Speaker Setup in Nearly Every Room

Sea Ranch and Le Corbusier Inspired This €1M French Riviera Villa by Jean Parent

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:56:26 -0700

Surrounded by pine trees and terraces, the low-lying home is firmly rooted in the Provençal landscape.

Location: La Cadière-d’Azur, France

Price: €1,150,000 (approximately $1,343,188 USD)

Architect: Jean Parente

Year: 1983

Footprint: 2,153 square feet (4 beds, 1.5 baths)

Lot Size: 0.5 acres

From the Listing: "Designed by Jean Parente in 1983, this villa with its fragmented silhouette represents a remarkable dialogue between vernacular heritage and the modernist architecture of the French Riviera. At the heart of a landscaped, terraced plot, the house unfolds over a single level. It is organized into three successive volumes, each housing different functions. The central volume features generous living spaces: a double-height living room with a fireplace and a dining area adjacent to a fitted kitchen, accessible via a sliding door. A mezzanine provides additional living space that can serve as an office, library, TV lounge, or reading area. Two shaded terraces complete this through-space. The living room leads to the night area, divided into two wings. The first wing includes three bedrooms with private terraces, a shower room, a dressing room, and ample storage. The second wing features a large primary bedroom with a bathroom and dressing room, as well as a private terrace. The property is completed by a swimming pool and several parking spaces. This listing is located in the hinterland of Bandol, outside the village of La Cadière-d’Azur in the Var department, in the heart of an exceptional landscaped environment of terraces and pine trees."

As he was designing this residence, architect Jean Parente drew inspiration from projects like the Cité Frugès by Le Corbusier and Sea Ranch.

Photo by Marion Sacco - Architecture de Collection

The home’s exterior features ochre-tinted concrete, large swathes of glass, and Provençal tile.

Photo by Marion Sacco - Architecture de Collection

See the full story on Dwell.com: Sea Ranch and Le Corbusier Inspired This €1M French Riviera Villa by Jean Parente
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What to Expect If You Want to Be a Backyard Beekeeper

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:56:32 -0700

I thought it’d be quaint to care for my own buzzing hives, but I learned there’s a lot to prepare for, from heavy lifting to warding off honey-hungry wildlife.

Some people pine for puppies—big, hungry eyes and wildly wagging tails. Others long for a feline companion, whose affection they have to earn. Others are into koi fish, or chickens, cockatoos, or turtles. But some of us yearn for something else: for tens of thousands of stinging insects, buzzing in a box. That is to say, for bees.

Count me among their ranks. Two years ago, when my husband and I ditched our frenzied New York City lives for bohemian countryside living—i.e. moved to the Hudson Valley—I knew I needed something to better connect me with my new, wilder environs. I am not an outdoors girl, and even less a gardener. But bees! That sounded quaint and relatively low-maintenance. I enrolled in an Introduction to Beekeeping class that January at Hudson Valley Bee Supply, my local bee store, and decided to raise the stakes by preordering a package of bees, too.

I soon discovered that keeping bees is actually nothing like keeping a cat or a cockatoo. It is, in fact, animal husbandry—not unlike keeping cows, goats, rabbits, or ducks. Jorik Phillips, my teacher and the founder of Hudson Valley Bee Supply, defines beekeeping simply: "‘Beekeeping’ is short for ‘keeping them alive through the winter,’" he says. "Otherwise, you’re ‘bee-having.’"

That seemingly straightforward mission can spin into a remarkably complex undertaking, as I was already learning before my first season had even started. Now that I’m on year two, I’ve come to appreciate that for most beekeepers (or "beeks," as we sometimes call ourselves), gaining proficiency with the essentials of the practice can take a few years—but mastery can take a lifetime.

Bees buzz on the top of the hive’s removable frames.

Courtesy of Lila Allen

Getting Started

By the time my bees arrived that May, I’d studied the photocopied mite-treatment guidelines provided by my supplier, and read through Kim Flottum’s The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden. I believe strongly in learning by doing, and figured I’d sort out the rest of it as I went. I assembled the hive (incorrectly, until I was nudged in the right direction by a friend) and picked up a three-pound package of bees—that’s around 10,000 of them—from a "bee drive-thru," which is exactly what it sounds like. I tore down Highway 209 in the pouring rain in my Subaru, a few loose bees buzzing around my head as I drove. I guess this is happening, I thought.

A brave friend helped me install the package, which involved shaking those 10,000 bees directly into the hive and hoping for the best. I got stung immediately. The protocol after rehoming the bees is to let them stay put for three days as they sniff out their new domicile—but 36 hours in, I woke up to a crime scene out of Hanna-Barbera: A bear had found my hive and ripped it apart during a rainstorm, scattering pockets of bees around the grass. I broke down crying, and scooped up wet bees by the handful on all fours in the yard. I had no idea if the queen had survived; I never found her.

But a week later, I trudged down to the hive—now surrounded by the saddest fence you’ve ever seen—and saw a few bees flying in and out. Another week later, there was brood (that is, baby bees). Every day, I’d go out and see if they were still alive, and somehow, they were. My fear around them waned, and turned into something else: affection.

Once a week, as is recommended, I’d conduct an inspection, which requires suiting up and prying open the hive to check for food stores, brood (in the form of eggs, pupae, and larvae), and signs of disease or swarming. Critically, it also involves testing regularly for varroa mites—"the number one killer of bees," says Phillips—and treating them.

Just a day and a half after installing the bees, a bear ripped the hive apart during a rainstorm.

Courtesy of Lila Allen

What You’ll Need

In my beeyard I use what is known as a Langstroth hive, a simple wooden box with a bottom board, lid, and an interior ledge that holds eight or 10 removable frames. Langstroth hive boxes can be stacked as a colony grows, and its modularity is one of the reasons it is the most popular format here in the U.S.

Acquiring the bees to go in that hive is the easy part. Stores like Phillips’s, where I got mine, offer bees in two forms: packages (similar to the one I bought) and "nucs," short for nucleus colonies—basically, a "starter" beehive containing a few frames with worker bees, a laying queen, brood, and food stores. Hives thrive best in sunny locations and, as I learned 36 hours in, you’re going to want a fence, especially in rural areas. Though it might be tempting to keep the bees in a far-off section of your yard, Phillips would beg you to reconsider. "You’re going to want to enjoy not just taking them apart and fiddling with them, but sitting on a chair and watching the crazy stuff they do," he says.

There’s also a bit of gear required: gloves and a bee jacket, suit, or veil; a hive tool (a small crowbar-like implement for wedging frames); a hive stand (to keep out skunks and other vermin), and a smoker (to keep the bees off of you while you work). All together, expect to spend at least $500 in your first year on equipment. I don’t live in any kind of sanctioned neighborhood, so I didn’t need to check my homeowners’ association bylaws—but you might. And in some states, including my own, you’ll need to register your hive. Since your bees will likely pay a visit to your neighbors’ yards, it’s wise to let them know about your new hobby, too. (Mine were gracious and curious, but some, I have heard, are not so lucky.) "It might take some charisma or kindness," says Frank Schellace, a beekeeper, researcher, and artist. "Teach them, rather than arguing with them," he suggests. A little bribery might not hurt, either: Honey can be a very effective peacemaker.

Beyond those basics, as a new beekeeper, you’ll also need companionship. "The first one to three years for most people are going to be tough," says Schellace. He and Phillips both recommend finding a mentor that can advise you on your journey. Because best practices will depend on your local weather, climate, and flora, it’s best to find one close to you who knows the unique conditions of your area.

In its second year, the bee yard has been expanded alongside the garden.

Courtesy of Lila Allen 

See the full story on Dwell.com: What to Expect If You Want to Be a Backyard Beekeeper
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The Roof Also Forms a Wall at This Soaring Colorado Cabin

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:56:30 -0700

An off-kilter pitch leans to the rear of the plan, with one eave connecting to the ground to enclose a storage area and pantry.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Allenspark, Colorado

Architect: Renée del Gaudio Architecture / @reneedelgaudioarchitecture

Footprint: 2,100 square feet

Builder: Coburn Partners

Structural Engineer: Correlate Structural Engineering

Civil Engineer: Van Horn Engineering

Cabinetry: Marc Hunter Woodworking

Photographer: David Lauer / @davidlauerphoto

From the Architect: "Built at the base of Mt. Meeker, this zero-carbon cabin brings together multiple generations of a family that has visited the valley for nearly a century. Rooted in both landscape and family history, Camp Meeker looks ahead, oﬀering a model for the next century of cabin design in the region. Inspired by the clarity of early miner cabins, the architecture is defined by a steep roof-wall and a palette of robust, honest materials. At the family’s request, there is no television, dishwasher, or microwave—an intentional return to quiet living. Yet behind this simplicity lies a sophisticated geothermal system that enables the cabin to operate with zero carbon.

"The cabin is organized into two distinct volumes: one for gathering and one for retreat. The primary volume is an open living space centered around a wood stove, with expansive views to Mt. Meeker, an aspen grove, and surrounding granite outcroppings. The rotated roof-wall shelters the space from western winds while creating space for a children’s sleeping loft above the kitchen. The second volume is a row of bedrooms with oversized sliding doors. Three bedrooms accommodate the adults, while a rooftop sleeping porch oﬀers the option of spending the night under the stars. From this perch, the family’s original 1950 log cabin can be seen across the pond, reinforcing the connection between generations.

"A restrained plan and palette of materials cultivate a calm, direct connection to nature. Outside, a fully fire-resistant envelope of concrete, steel framing, and ironwood siding is designed for resilience and longevity. Inside, floors, walls, and ceiling are lined in a singular, rustic-grade oak, creating a warm, unified interior.

"Camp Meeker is a place to slow down—to gather around a fire, wake with the sun, and fall asleep beneath the stars. Designed to endure, the cabin is built for the next generation of this family and the ones to follow."

Photo by David Lauer

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Roof Also Forms a Wall at This Soaring Colorado Cabin

The Oak Trees Are "Like Roommates" at This Midcentury-Inspired Austin Home

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:56:19 -0700

North Arrow Studio designed a glass-walled primary suite facing a private courtyard where two of the trees tower.

Artist and designer Laurie Chapman is forever on the hunt for a new project. After remodeling a few homes around the country, including one she and her husband recently updated in San Francisco, Laurie was ready for the next challenge. "We started to notice there was a lot happening in Austin with great architects, so we decided to go see what was happening there," recalls Laurie. Three days after landing in the Texas capital, she and her husband found themselves in contract on a spec house that was currently under construction.

Austin architecture firm North Arrow Studio worked with developer Brita Wallace on the plans for this Zilker neighborhood new build. Homeowner Laurie Chapman bought the house partway through and designed the interiors and landscaping.

Photo: Chase Daniel

The house has a warm brick exterior that blends it with the neighborhood, which features many midcentury homes.

Photo by Likeness Studio

Located in the dense, walkable Zilker neighborhood just southwest of downtown, the house was roughly framed out and had a courtyard plan that Laurie loved. Meeting with the home’s developer, Brita Wallace, and learning about the design architect, local firm North Arrow Studio, sealed the deal. "It was great because we were able to go in and customize the finishes while it was still under construction," says Laurie.

The glass-framed entrance doesn’t interrupt the span of the brick wall.

Photo by Likeness Studio

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Oak Trees Are "Like Roommates" at This Midcentury-Inspired Austin Home

Cabin Season Is Coming—and Here’s a Handmade Oregon Dream Home for $899K

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:56:33 -0700

Set on 40 acres, the residence was lovingly crafted by a woodworker using materials sourced from the surrounding mountains.

Location: 2603 Winona Rd, Grants Pass, Oregon

Price: $899,000

Year: 1975

Footprint: 2,897 Square Feet (3 Beds, 2 Baths)

Lot Size: 40 Acres

From the Listing: "In the mid ’70s, a Cal Arts student purchased a 40-acre wooded parcel with panoramic views of Walker Mountain and the surrounding hills, just north of Grants Pass, up a half-mile driveway surrounded by trees. The property was transformed under the skill of a talented artist/builder, from a modest Craftsman-inspired home into a family compound full of architectural wonder. The main residence is filled with stained-glass windows, custom cabinetry, and hand-shaved wood beams, crafted on-site from the owners’ woodworking shop. As years went by, the owners added a detached guest suite, a standalone rec room, several garages, wood and tool sheds, a barn that once housed goats and chickens, gardens and orchard spaces, a tennis court, and a backyard for lawn games. The property is full of native trees and has a seasonal stream and creek. From sunrise to sunset, the lighting and views throughout show why this special place was selected years ago to build a dream home, now available for a new owner to experience."

Set on 40 acres, this Oregon cabin was lovingly crafted by a woodworker using materials sourced from the surrounding mountains.

Photo by Luis Gabriel

Native Douglas fir, oak, and Jeffrey pine trees grow throughout the 40-acre property.

Photo by Luis Gabriel

See the full story on Dwell.com: Cabin Season Is Coming—and Here’s a Handmade Oregon Dream Home for $899K
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The Staircase in This Renovated Spanish Flat Is Also a Storage Unit—and a Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (GRAPHĒ) — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 08:56:29 -0700

The baby blue built-in maximizes utility in the compact 753-square-foot space.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Lastres, Spain

Architect: Extrarradio

Footprint: 753 square feet

Builder: Luis Galera

Photographer: Sara Cuerdo / @saracuerdo

From the Architect: "The intervention takes place in a traditional house in the historic center of Lastres, an area where local architecture combines thick masonry walls, small openings, and timber structures. Over time, the house had accumulated partitions, additions, and ceilings that reduced the free height and darkened the existing spaces. The project begins with a fundamental operation: clearing out the interior to enhance the original structural logic.

"All interior partitions are removed and the timber floor structures are exposed and reinforced. This gesture restores the full height of the main floor, improves cross-ventilation, and expands both interior views and views toward the sea. The existing structure becomes the expressive backbone of the project. With the space now open, the interior layout is organized through a series of infrastructure—furniture elements that replace traditional walls. These pieces integrate storage, kitchen, bathroom, and staircase, functioning as filters that organize the program without fragmenting the volume. The house is perceived as a single continuous space with different degrees of privacy.

"The furniture is built with simple geometries and soft blue and white tones that amplify natural light and highlight the presence of the dark timber beams. The kitchen and staircase are integrated into one of these volumes as a light piece that does not interrupt visual continuity. The bathroom is resolved within another of these volumes, ensuring privacy without closing the space up to the ceiling, which preserves the full perception of height. Wet areas are finished with durable materials and neutral colors that do not compete with the structure. The mezzanine, previously a residual space, is converted into a bedroom. Insulation is improved, the floor is regularized, and the sloping structure is left exposed."

Photo by Sara Cuerdo

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Staircase in This Renovated Spanish Flat Is Also a Storage Unit—and a Kitchen