Dwell March/April 2025

What’s the one thing in your home that’s essential? The nonnegotiable? The thing that will make your house yours? And what would you sacrifice to get it? Our annual Money Issue is all about the compromises we make to get it right. Whether you’re building, renovating, or just redecorating, the choice to save or splurge on flooring or countertops, windows or siding, is all a part of the balancing act that is staying within your budget. Everyone in this issue prioritized what’s most important to them. Some focused on a single space. In Seattle, a restaurateur and member of the city’s “First Family of Pho’” went big on a kitchen (p. 90)—in the signature pink of their restaurants—that’s perfect for the owner’s frequent entertaining. Others were intent on solving a…

Andrea Wyner Photographer “Concrete Classic,” p. 60 “I’m a natural light photographer. Pretty much everything I photograph is all in natural light,” says Andrea Wyner, who’s based in Milan, Italy, and focuses on food, travel, design, interiors, and architecture for books and magazines. Yet, when it came time to shoot a historic brutalist home outside Turin for this issue, the weather was not cooperating, with predictions of pouring rain for days. Still, Wyner caught a break in the clouds, enough to note how the dramatic concrete home also has a playful side: “The first thing I thought was, like, Can we have a party here?” Kelly Vencill Sanchez Writer and Contributing Editor “Compound Interest,” p. 96 Kelly Vencill Sanchez was excited to drive to Carmel, more than 300 miles north…

“I love this. Anything that breaks down the notion that more and bigger is better is a win for me.”IAMTHELAB Design Studio Re: Budget Breakdown: For $31K, a Brooklyn Family Makes Room for All in an 850-Square-Foot Apartment I appreciate you showing small spaces that can be beautiful too! I really get sick of just seeing huge houses, as if they’re the only ones that can have style. And, frankly, we all need to do with a little bit less. @CHICKENSMAMA VIA INSTAGRAM @elena_quin_801 comments: Agreed! And for a decent price. It gets old seeing these huge houses with appliance garages and massive walk-in pantries with superhigh ceilings because it’s like, well yes, that’s lovely if you can afford that much in a purchase price AND in renovation costs. I…

Give me a plain, industrial steel hood every time. I dislike the plastered/paneled box, and I think the tube doesn’t provide enough coverage. @anne_saurus on Instagram I really wanted one for our kitchen, as I love the look, but people kept calling it a trash can, so I opted for a more classic hood. @marisalammes on Instagram The least horrible of all range hoods. Folks seem to love monumentally oversize casings and ornaments for these technical features—as if they were medieval baronial mantelpieces, or as if they were vast commercial kitchens with acres of stainless steel going up to the ceiling. These folks are wrong! @de.monchaux on Instagram A major characteristic of a proper hood exhaust is that its dimensions line up with the dimensions of the burners underneath it.…

User-Centric Design The New Frankfurt housing project, led by architect and city planner Ernst May, had three main goals: Increase postwar housing supply, improve quality of life for working families, and accomplish both of those points efficiently and economically. In 1926, May tasked Schütte-Lihotzky (above) with designing a space-efficient kitchen for the project’s modest apartments. To do so, Schütte-Lihotzky conducted detailed studies and interviews with housewives and women’s groups about what worked and what didn’t work in their existing kitchens. A Domestic Laboratory Schütte-Lihotzky outfitted the Frankfurt Kitchen with a variety of gadgets. The cook box was something like an early iteration of the Crock-Pot, except that it was an insulated container that allowed food to finish cooking using its own heat from boiling, minimizing energy costs. Labeled aluminum storage…

Not Your Grandfather’s ’50s Nostalgia for the 1950s doesn’t have to express a yen for conservatism but, rather, can be about wanting the creature comforts of early suburbia—your grandparents’ Levittown Cape Cod starter home’s cozy rec room or the sunny dinette off the tidy and efficient kitchen. For some of the same vibes in your more contemporary space, Cristina Poelk, an art director at Hem who also runs @soft_servings, an Instagram account dedicated to beautiful kitchens, advises: “Use solid lacquered wood and pair it with stainless-steel countertops.” Nick Battaglia, an Atlanta set decorator with an affinity for midcentury styles, says that in his bathroom, little tweaks went a long way. “I changed out the light fixture for a double swag light, like a Hollywood Regency [one].” To channel the era…