Book excerpt: Appealing and innovative houses that show creativity, ingenuity, and design savvy for all homeowners today. With striking photographs and compelling stories from its vast home-design archive, the editors of the New York Times’s beloved Home section offer a look at how contemporary homeowners make the most of their living spaces—whether small or stately, rural or urban, historic or cutting-edge—and do it with style. Reflecting the latest and most inventive ideas in home design, the projects express the optimism, resourcefulness, and experimentation of today’s architects, designers, and homeowners. Included in the book are rustic houses that promote a return to the basics; cottages and cabins that connect with their picturesque and often remote surroundings; small apartments and studios that make creative use of compact spaces; repurposed spaces that offer unique living quarters for the innovative resident; and numerous other house types that demonstrate the many ways we live today. Homeowners, designers, and architects alike will find ideas and inspiration in this diverse collection of homes, each appealing in its own way. Unique and inviting, these homes are exemplary studies of living at its most seductive and most creative.