Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2026 i House Beautiful

It was supposed to be simple. The homeowners said they just wanted new floors. But when designer Cynthia Ferguson walked into her longtime clients’ new Toronto home—having moved into a larger place a block from their old one, with their two teenagers in tow—she saw more than outdated Brazilian cherrywood planks. “They said, ‘Tell me if you see anything else you’d change,’” she recalls. “Which is never a smart thing to ask a designer.” A few weeks later, the “easy” flooring swap evolved into a full gut renovation. Ferguson jokes about it now—“We built the plane as we were flying it”—but the project proved to be a perfect canvas for her all-in approach. The home-owner, who runs her own business, explained she wanted the house to feel grown-up but still…

FEW PLACES conjure up charm and beauty quite like the English countryside. From the pastoral landscapes to the deeply rooted history, it’s a transportive environment that worms its way into the mood board (and mind) of every design lover. And if you happen to have called it home for part of your life? Well, you can understand why it’d be hard to let that go. Such was the case for Charlene Petersen’s client, who was hunting for a home with her husband in Maryland that somehow channeled her beloved British roots. The owner of Cashmere Interior, Petersen is no stranger to infusing a space with the charm of a bygone era or far-flung locale, so ushering the couple’s new-to-them 100-year-old house into its next act proved a worthy challenge. “This was…

May 1998 Farmhouse Made Modern Most renovations try to make additions blend in, but harmony doesn’t have to mean sameness. When 84-year-old Evelyn Nef approached her neighbor, renowned architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, to remodel her 18th-century Georgetown retreat in D.C., she made it clear she wanted its distinct materials to shine. The result was a character-filled modern farmhouse, where mismatched elements enrich one another while honoring the home’s original soul with timeless ease and grace. Read the full story at housebeautiful.com/90smodernfarmhouse. For more Archive Dives delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.…

“I WAS SURPRISED TO LEARN THIS home was built in 1995,” says Joan Enger, principal designer at Hoboken, New Jersey–based J. Patryce Design & Company. “It definitely felt older and wiser.” The center-hall colonial on a hilltop in Tewksbury, New Jersey, had classic lines, expansive rooms, and breathtaking views of the countryside, giving it what Enger calls an “old soul” vibe. However, the estate required more than just a few cosmetic updates to transform it from a weekend place into a functional, full-time residence for the home-owners, a family with two young children. To make it flow for everyday living, Enger performed an extensive renovation, which involved everything from adding a sizable kitchen to reconfiguring the layout to allow for maximal sunlight. “The views and the natural light are wonderful,”…

THEY COULD HAVE torn it down. They could have built something new and grander somewhere else. Instead, this North Texas family—two doctors, three kids, nonstop energy—called Ginger Curtis of Urbanology Designs to completely reinvent the home they’d lived in for more than a decade. “The bones were good, but the layout wasn’t,” Curtis says. “We had to re-architect how it lived day to day.” To that end, she moved windows, widened openings, and carved out light wherever she could. Walls came down, sight lines opened up, and every inch was reconsidered for the way the family lives—gathering, hosting, and juggling busy schedules. To make the familiar feel new, Curtis layered organic curves and natural textures against clean, modern lines: stone meeting wood, plaster meeting metal, form meeting function. The rhythm of…