3 Interior Designers Transform The Same A-Frame Cabin

[Narrator] These three interior designers

have been given a photograph of an empty A-frame cabin.

They have free reign to design it in any way they please.

Hi, I'm Darren Jett and my designs are atmospheric,

immersive and always full of life.

My name is Chiara

and my design style tends to be warm, modern.

My name's Jenny and my design style

is colorful, unique and thoughtful.

[Narrator] No clients, no restrictions, just blank space.

I think that there's endless opportunity with an A-frame

and there's a lot going on here that I think takes away

from that opportunity.

My first impressions of this A-frame

is that it's actually so cool.

I love the geometries, I love the wood, I love the warmth.

It's not that inspiring,

it's just kind of your typical A-frame cabin.

There's some natural elements, a lot of wood

and not a lot of light.

If I'm going to the country for the weekend,

I would love to just be surrounded by nature

and surrounded by light so I think it might be cool

to explore actually removing the wood

that's in between the beams and perhaps replacing that

with the material that's sort of translucent.

Perhaps we could do something

like a polycarbonate thermal glass.

I think overall this is a very atmospheric material.

It lends itself to something that's a bit more modern.

Someone like Steven Holl, who's a fantastic architect,

has used this on a few museums

and if you go past one of these places at nighttime,

it almost glows up like a lantern.

For the walls as they are here now,

I am not comfortable with the asymmetry.

I would want the drywall to carry up

and be even on all sides.

I would want something very reflective on the walls

to bring in the light from outside and I would love

to see a lime wash finish on the plaster walls.

An easy way to brighten up the space is with paint.

So rather than painting the space a singular color,

I went for a few different shades of paint

and the idea was almost to treat this A-frame

as an art gallery, kind of this white box

that was grounded in this warm white color.

I kept thinking of an alpine A-frame lodge

and I didn't want anything to feel too dark

with the finishes or the surfaces,

so I thought something light,

this is actually more of a bleached pale European oak,

I thought that would be really pretty and not feel so heavy.

I thought the beams just look really heavy,

so we decided to white wash the beams

so they have a similar tonality

to the warm white harvest moon paint color

that you see on the walls.

In this instance, I really wanted something fresh

and clean and light and bright

and so I decided it would make more sense

to have white plaster for the beams as well

in the same finish as the walls.

I just think that would be a cleaner

backdrop for everything.

Right now the door just looks a little small,

a little traditional.

I really want to freshen this place up,

so I want to essentially create a more modern language

and something that's just a little bit taller

to let more light in.

I think it would be really cool to actually have

perhaps two doors and maybe those are actually flanking

the center of the cabin and that would lead you outside

to perhaps your patio, your pool or your hot tub.

It would also create a nice path of circulation.

So in this original room they bring the drywall up so far

and then they finish it with the wood beams

and I think that's a bit awkward.

I would wanna get rid of it all,

blow it out and have it all be glass window.

I'd really like to just take in a beautiful view

and have this feel like a real alpine A-frame.

Right now what I see on the floor,

it looks to be a very short plank wood floor.

There's nothing wrong with that,

but I do think what I see as a challenge in this space

is how to make it feel a little bit more fresh

and what I would like to do is actually

remove the wood flooring

and put down concrete floor instead.

I would pigment it to be a very warm color

and underneath it would allow us to actually

have a radiant heat source

so that when it's wintertime everything is very cozy.

I would really love to bring in a beautiful

reclaimed limestone in a light color.

Limestone, of course, has a variation,

but I would try to use a very creamy palette

and I think personally I'd also try to do some radiant heat

so that it doesn't feel too cold

on the feet in the winter months.

So for the kitchen, I'm going with this hunter green tile

by Fire Clay.

It has like a really nice matte finish

and I went with a square shape and carved out

the flooring of the kitchen and it was really important

for me to bring in elements of nature

since this is an A-frame cabin,

I'm imagining we're somewhere in the country,

away from city life.

So on top of the concrete floor I would love to have a rug

of some sort that would just provide

that extra sense of warmth and that extra sense of place.

Perhaps we sort of lean into the cabin aesthetic

a little bit, let's not go too far overboard,

but let's still have a little bit of fun.

Perhaps we do something like a skin or a hide,

something that's really soft to where if you are on a sofa

or you're on a piece of furniture,

but your friend is next to you and they're curled up

by a fire reading a book, you're actually on something

that's very soft and cozy.

So with the floors in the original rendering,

it's kind of this midtone wood

and I decided to strip the floors

so the floors just are an extension of the walls

and I'm just creating like clean backdrop

that's kind of this galleryesque space.

I love this kind of mossy green rug.

It's a high low pile and it's really, really soft to touch

but also it's bringing in the green from outside

and I just feel very inclined with this view of treetops

to try to bring that in as much as possible.

The cabinet itself is not too big

but it has a ton of ceiling height.

If I'm coming up here for the weekend,

I would love to have my bedroom space

sort of separated from everything else,

so why not actually use the height to hour advantage?

Create a sort of lofted space above

that can be totally private,

maybe it's only your bedroom, maybe it's very, very zen

and you're just giving a little bit more square footage.

The ceilings are so high,

I'm inclined to want to loft a beautiful bedroom up there.

I would love for that backdrop to be the floor

to ceiling windows and just have a very simple bed

and beautiful bedside tables set up against that window.

So for the second floor loft space,

I used this kind of champagne frosted color glass

at the front of the loft space

and I just thought it was a nice way

that you could kind of see into the space,

but also the frosted glass offers some privacy.

I think a place like this

where you're probably just going for the weekend,

you can keep everything just very simple.

So let's say that there's just a bed in the loft

and maybe it just faces out over the living room.

I am wary of spiral staircases,

so I really wanted something a little bit more substantial,

but I didn't want it to take away

from the space that I needed in this design.

So I thought a beautiful plaster spiral staircase

would kind of be that perfect medium between the two needs.

In the area between the two doors,

I would love to do something that's just a little bit

more sculptural than an average spiral staircase

and I think here what we could do

is sort of create a ribbon effect.

Imagine that your banisters are completely infilled

and in between you have sort of plaster banisters

that go up.

As for the staircase,

I just wanted something simple and subdued.

I did a black spiral staircase, but I didn't want it

to be focal so I extended the tile wall

so you can see that the staircase is kind of hidden

behind the tile wall in the kitchen.

In the original A-frame, I don't understand this kitchen,

it's taking up the entire space.

Instead, I would just run the kitchen along the wall

and put everything that one needs centered off that one wall

and not encroach upon the space any further.

I would keep the general idea of the kitchen

living along this long wall here,

but I would eliminate this sort of island happening here.

I think that whenever you're in a small space

you want everything to feel sort of open.

Because we're eliminating some storage here for flow,

why don't we put some of that up here,

kind of on the wall as an upper

and that would provide just extra space for food,

for plates, for things like that.

So looking at the original kitchen,

it's pretty generic so I wanted to think of materials

that kind of had a neutral feel

that were a bit more elevated.

For the countertop, I went with this really unique marble.

It has some hints of beige and purple and blues

and for the cabinet and the island, I chose particle board

which is a really inexpensive material.

I was inspired by cabins from the seventies.

Everyone wants counter space to work on,

so I decided that the dining table

would also serve as counter space.

It's a vintage Guillerme et Chambron Folding Dining Table

and that pine made me think of a Swiss chalet.

If I'm hosting people,

I want to make sure that they all feel comfortable.

I wanna make sure there's a ton of seats

and a big table to have beautiful meals all from the garden.

So why don't we create a large table?

Let's maybe sit at minimum eight people.

A table in a place like this, I think, should also be wood.

I am roasting a chicken

and my friend spills a bottle of wine or whatever.

If it's wood, that's totally fine

and I actually sort of want those moments to happen.

They create stories.

I'd like to think of this space as having different areas

for different times of the day and different activities

and I love this Green River Project Game Table

and this way you don't have to do your games

or your chess or your checkers or your puzzles

or any of that on the dining table,

but you have kind of your own sacred space.

There is this carved out area here on the right.

If we think about perhaps doing floor ceiling bookcases

for instance in the same material, how cool would that be?

The back of the bookcase would be flush with the wall

on the right and the top would go to the underside

of the portion here where it flattens out.

In this case, I felt like the existing fireplace

was protruding too much into this space.

I was inspired by the work of Arnell Binwa

who is a ceramicist and she's done beautiful custom mantles

and I thought here was an opportunity

to do one that just blends with the lime wash

but doesn't totally disappear

because it is the meeting point in this space.

So for the fireplace,

I decided actually to keep the existing fireplace.

It's what grounded my inspiration

and I built the rest of the A-frame off

of this existing fireplace, leaning into this natural stone.

The angle of the fireplace creates a sense of place

in the living room and kind of separates the living area

from the dining area and kitchen.

I like that.

The thing I don't love about the fireplace

is that it just feels a bit fake to me.

I think if we did something

that was sort of tectonic in a way,

that could be very cool.

Perhaps we do these sort of rocky forms that are flat on top

that have a kind of rusticated edge on the face.

The shape is very conducive to being open to the dining area

even though it does create a sense of separation

because we're angling it.

I think a comfy sofa is so important

and using a comfy upholstered skirted sofa

in this kind of angular A-frame that could veer more modern,

would soften it a bit.

I am using this Maison C pattern called Betcheva

and it's a really nice repeat 'cause it's not too busy

but it adds just a really beautiful plateful floral moment

and then I made a custom hexagonal table.

I've wanted to go with bolder accents

and furniture pieces and the couch

that I'm going with is the Togo Sofa by Lean Rose.

It's a fan favorite.

I went with the mustard corduroy fabrication.

This coffee table is by Lucas Mordin.

I sourced it on 1stDibs

and I loved the hand anodized aluminum finish.

I love mixing finishes in a space and I just thought

this would be a really interesting texture

to bring into this space with the wood

and the stone floors and the rug.

I really want to create a sort of communal sensibility.

Think about you're almost at a camp

and you're around the fire or you're around a table

and you're all having conversations

and just having a good time.

I think if we have a sofa,

something like the Pierre Yovanovitch sofa for instance

that has these sort of angular lines creating different

kind of views and different situations for seating,

that could be something that's very cool.

This coffee table, I love,

it has kind of this like organic kidney shape.

It's a really nice size, it's long.

You could probably eat at it, have hors d'oeuvres,

drinks with your friends and I paired the coffee table

and the sofa with our teddy chair by Pieces

and this kind of custom mossy mohair color.

We're introducing a lot of modernity into this cabin.

We're making it feel fresh,

but I always want to still keep the sense of place.

This particular table, I would love to do something

that's more of a shou sugi ban wood

and that's essentially a charred wood table.

Again, it sort of lends itself

to that cabin aesthetic, campfire.

The chair is a really beautiful French Neapolitan

classic fringe chair and I did it in a beautiful

Zak+Fox mossy green velvet.

I keep seeing the space as very seasonal,

so in the winter it's really soft and cozy and inviting

but then in the summer you're picking up on the greens

and what's outside.

Because of the way that the sofa

is orientated towards the fireplace,

there is a sort of opening on the other side of the room,

perfect for another lounge chair.

Whenever you have a lounge chair

that's sort of situated in a kind of corner

but you can sort of walk all the way around it,

always fantastic to think of it

as being more of a sculptural moment.

The chair that I'm thinking of

is the Benetti Chair from Bonacina.

It's another chair that is actually a wicker material

but the form is just really fun.

Along the wall I put one of my favorite sofas,

it's called the Dog Settee and it's by Howe London

and this fabric is very, very, very durable

and the whole concept behind it

is that your dogs can sit there as well as you.

Next to the lounge chair,

I would definitely add a sort of cocktail table.

I like something like this that's a simple bronze material.

Perhaps it's hammered to give more of that

kind of old effect, but really the function

is super important.

You always wanna have a table next to a chair.

If you have a drink, if you have a book,

you wanna set it down on something.

I also added this, again,

pine Guillerme et Chambron Secretary to the room

and I thought this is kind of a great opportunity,

you can have a bar or a desk to write letters

or get some work done, but I like the duality to it.

I chose the USM Holler piece, the credenza

and I did it in this kind of slate gray color.

I thought like the neutral gray paired really well

with these brighter furniture pieces

and it's just a really great piece

to store your linens, your serving wear, et cetera,

just to keep everything really clean and organized.

In regards to lighting,

over the dining table because we are turning it

in sort of this fashion that's up against the wall,

I would like to have a linear light that goes above.

This particular one I'm thinking of is a Franz West design.

It's actually sort of tectonic in a way

with these exposed light bulbs on the end.

My favorite lighting are these pebble pendants

by Anne Light, Anne Light's one of my favorite

lighting designers and I think the pebble collection

is just striking and it worked so well

with the stone fireplace.

It had a very earthy feel,

just perfect for this A-frame moment

and made the space really cozy

and the lighting from the pebble pendants

is just very warm.

I think it's always great when you have a kitchen

that has uppers, to integrate your lighting

underneath those uppers.

You really wanna light up your working space.

So having lights underneath your uppers

is a fantastic and very easy solution.

So with an A-frame, I'm a little intimidated by lighting

because even with the loft, the ceiling is high

and now we've brought in so much natural daylight

that over the dining table there should be something

really beautiful and decorative that provides

a nice amount of light,

but it doesn't have to be the sole source.

So I sourced these vintage Hansen Jacobson pendants.

For the kitchen island,

I'm going with a valve pendant also by Anne Light.

Super clean lines, a really modern lighting piece.

Nothing too loud or bold, but I love the shape.

So the chandelier of the living area

is by Martin de Selluer.

It's called the Sundial Chandelier

and that's because it is made up

of all of these individual disks

and the disk are actually lit on top

and they shine up and they sort of create

a sort of sundial effect from the central post.

I think it's important to do sort of dramatic moment

like this in the living area

because entertaining is so critical

to the idea of this weekend retreat

and I'm also just imagining pulling up at night

from the city when I'm driving in,

I've put that light on my phone so I can turn it on

and that's really glowing the house

when I'm coming into the driveway.

I've really entered the world of pine

and I loved these Swedish all wood

with paper shade sconces.

I just thought those were beautiful

and I can imagine that the light

would be very, very warm that they would give off.

So I went the full length of the A-frame.

I'm relying on these added layers

to create the overall lighting together.

I love offering different light options

to have ambient lighting, especially in the evening

and this is Noguchi Floor Lamp, another classic,

one of my other favorite lighting designers,

I feel like you can't go wrong with anything Noguchi.

The paper cast just a really beautiful glow.

Whenever you have a seating group like this,

I always, always, always recommend

having reading lamps next to your seat.

These particular lamps that I'm thinking of,

they're actually the Delphine Light sold at Floss

and they're adjustable and they're perfect for curling up,

reading a book, just setting a little bit of mood too.

With the A-frame you don't have a lot of wall space

to go crazy with artwork but I did want something

really beautiful and textured and warm

to kind of serve as some sort of visual on the wall

opposite the kitchen where the dining table is

and I love this Egyptian tapestry.

It picks up on the colors that I have inside

and I think a tapestry too for sound and warmth

is a really cozy addition.

The planter are the column planters by Pieces

and we designed them so they're stackable.

I did all three colors that the column is offered in

and I've just thought like the planter on its own

is almost like a nice art piece.

I think that in most spaces they always benefit

from having plant life.

They provide a sense of mystery.

If you have something that's kind of tall,

it creates a sort of spatial moment.

I like to mix my plants, I love to have a big palm tree,

I love to have smaller ferns.

Since there isn't a lot of art space.

My partner, Maison C is an artist and she does murals.

Her name is Castanza Tedolbranski

and so I thought it would be fun to have her do

kind of like a vine up the mantle.

Again, bringing in the green from outside

and having this kind of be a little bit more

of a magical little touch to this mantle.

The books and objects

are always very important in a house.

I'm imagining there's a plethora of coffee table books

and design books and art books

and things that you maybe have no idea

that you have an interest in and that you're visiting

for the weekend and you pull something out

and you're like, Oh my God, this is so cool,

I'm gonna sit down and read about it.

I really love this A-frame.

I think it's a nice mix of bringing nature inside

and it's blending in a lot of modern and clean lines.

I am very happy with it.

It mixes all the textures and colors

and creates a really beautiful environment

In the end, I really love this design.

You have a beautiful effect that every morning

when you wake up, the whole house kind of glows.

I think it's a really perfect retreat

and I could just imagine spending probably a little bit

too much time here.

[lively upbeat music]

Wow.

Oh my God.

Okay, this is cool.

Yeah. We are all so different.

What is that?

What is the ribbed glass?

So it's actually a polycarbonate insulated glass.

Oh, cool.

So kind of like Steven Holl,

something like the Acne Stores you might see

they have this material.

[Jenny] It's really eye catching.

And I love how you actually

also sort of went a bit more modern too.

I love that citron, it's such a pretty-

The yellow and the greens work so well together.

So it was like these natural colors

juxtaposed with brighter colors

to kind of feel like an art gallery.

That's so cool.

You also did kind of the same thing

with a kind of a wood

with some of the greens coming through.

Yeah, I kept thinking this could be upstate

or even in Europe, like a little chalet

and bringing the outdoors in was really important.

I love that sort of forced perspective

that you created too by keeping the walls clad in wood

but you blew out that back wall.

Exactly, I really wanted the focal point to be the view

and bringing that in as much as possible.

I would totally live in either of these.

I think they're both very soothing.

Just this fantasy world that I would love to spend time in.

I would love to just honestly make a meal in your kitchen.

It looks so nice and just really cozy.

I love the materiality.

I can just see myself cooking nice meal for all my friends.

I don't cook in the city,

but when I go upstate or when I go somewhere

like a cabin like this, all the skills come out

and I just wanna show off.

And yours, I'm just obsessed

with the whole fireplace moment.

I really wanna curl up with a book

and just doze off and not have a care in the world.

It's so zen.

Yeah, so, so, so zen.

I could easily dive into either one of these settings,

this is this warm, modern, sexy vibe

and then I agree like I am terrible about cooking

and doing much in in the city,

but when I go upstate and escape,

that is exactly the kind of place I would love

to cook and again, entertain and just chill out.

It's very happy.

Those colors are really happy.

[Darren] Yeah, I feel good looking at this.