Five home photo galleries that clicked

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Our yearly lists of most popular home photo galleries and articles certainly contained some surprises. Before we race ahead into 2011, here’s one final look at five photo galleries that you might have missed the first time around:

1. Bali high: A Santa Monica family builds their dream tropical retreat. The gallery just missed making our year-end list, getting edged out by a nose.

2. Remade modern: An L.A. couple dive into the remodeling business. Project No. 1: Their own home, updated for a new era. This gallery premiered in August but continues to draw readers; had we given it one more month to collect clicks, it probably would have cracked our top 10 for the year.

3. Hacienda style: An architect, interior designer and landscaping veteran revive a 1920s hacienda with sophistication and a few visual surprises. In rankings dominated by modern design, this house still managed to hold its own.

4. Popsicle-stick furniture: David Hrobowski builds tables, chairs, lamps and mirrors, stick by stick. See to believe.

5. Milan furniture fair: A photo gallery with our coverage from the world’s premiere showcase of contemporary design ranked as our No.1 photo gallery of the year, excluding home tours. We’ll be on the scene again in April (perhaps once again running into Philippe Starck, above). Follow our reporting from the 2011 show via our Milan Twitter feed.