A Cool & Contemporary Family Home Designed For Easy Living

[Music] we purchased this house six years ago we're in West End Toronto in ronsonsville very close to Hyde Park we have two little girls 11 and 13. and we wanted to create a family home we actually purchased it without seeing it but we knew it checked off all of the boxes so we moved from Ottawa moved in and then thought about what we wanted to do [Music] in the original layout where I'm standing was a tiny little walkway that was right beside the staircase and it connected all three of the zones this walkway was so tiny I used to scratch my knuckles as I was walking through carrying a laundry basket to the basement so we knew we wanted to open that up and make it feel like part of this space the layout was really important to us and we typically do this with a lot of our Interiors the middle is the kitchen and we chose the middle because we wanted it to feed into the dining room and also feed into the family room when you walk through the first big moment that you feel is this double waterfall book Matched leather marble that extends from the counter all the way down to the floor and a lot of people are nervous to use natural material in their kitchen because it needs to function and be really durable we chose to do a leather finish because it is indestructible my husband and I do a lot of traveling we go to older cities where we see all this lovely marble and patina and we wanted that in our house and we feel like every little etching that's made on the counter or the backsplash is just a mark in our memory the dark wood kitchen is really an anchoring space for the whole main floor but we also wanted to convey the natural material and have the graining show through so we did the stain as dark as possible while still allowing it to look like natural material like wood we wanted to hide all the appliances away because although we want it to be strong we also wanted it to be a quiet backdrop we didn't want it to scream kitchen so everything has a place and it's all tucked away we chose to do these black cans because we wanted them to feel more architectural we have a lot of stuff going on in our main floor and the lighting was a very intentional decision [Music] the back of the house we wanted to keep it light and bright it's a North facing window so we knew we weren't going to get floods of light to come in but we created a huge opening to maximize the amount that does enter that space we chose to do really light and soft Furnishing and that was very intentional because we just wanted to again Echo this light and brightness of the main floor my husband had one request during this whole renovation please build me a place to put my records and where I can put my turntable so he got his wish we have one stacked area of mill work right beside the fireplace and it's become quite a little hub for our family we all enjoy sitting around and he puts on whatever record and it's just been a really great comfy space the second thing that my husband requested in this renovation was a place to put at least one guitar so he has a wall down here on the main floor that he keeps the token guitar and sometimes it rotates but on display for you today is his golden one we wanted to maximize the light but we also didn't want to put any window behind the sofa so we were trying to play with different solutions whenever we design in a two-dimensional plan we're always thinking 3D so I knew right when I was doing an L-shaped sofa that we definitely needed to create a softness to expose the architectural windows with this lovely Ripple full drapery that has an architectural track at the ceiling originally we had a fireplace in the front living room and it was bricked up we couldn't use it and it's something that I've always that I always love in my home so we knew that this renovation we were adding a fireplace we did another leather finish marble and some people don't want a TV above a fireplace but practical this is my house so we added the TV above to frame TV so it just Blends and it conceals and then we have dark wood paneling on one side the record station on the other and it just balances out the lightness of the fireplace when you walk into the house the first thing you'll feel is the archway we did this in a light wood tone that's similar to the flooring and we wanted to create a softness the archway allowed you to enter through an organic shape coming into this space we wanted it to feel calm and bright one thing that we like to do in all of our designs is incorporate these step lights they're lovely little fixtures that are embedded into drywall get mudded over and painted contractors either love them or hate them but we always do them and they just give such a nice glow at night and it's very unexpected the living room used to be at the front of the house and it always just felt really tight and congested and there was nowhere for anyone to go so with the dining room at the front we opened up the walls we did a custom dining table and we curved the corners of it so that it has that organic sense to it and it feels really easy to move around the gray chairs is something that's come with us from our last house and originally we thought we wanted to replace them we waited until we had the custom table come in and then we added the chairs around and they just seemed to work they're kind of Chameleon Chairs because they were part of a different setup before but the curves and the organic and the color it just really works well in the space so we're keeping them the Bell light fixture is something that's very visible from the street and we wanted our dining room light fixture to feel like a very strong presence and at night when this is illuminated it gives such a soft pretty glow on top of the table and from the outside it just looks like a very warm and welcoming space to come into our primary bedroom we chose to do a headboard that goes from floor to ceiling with very subtle detail curves around the edges that Echo the design detail that we did on the archway in the main floor and we did this one in a light oak because we wanted to match the flooring and again create a calm softness by having a king bed on the wall that we selected underneath the headboard we had to do these tiny side tables and again we wanted them in a natural material so they're marble tops and if you notice they're both different sizes I sleep on one side and my table is a little bit larger than my husband's and we had to do this because of space we wanted to have a statement light fixture because again we're always thinking about the street and what you see when you're walking by and we chose to do it in a brass finish that just again it's a nice nod to the historicness of the house one thing that we knew we wanted to do we call it color drenching and that's where you take the same color from your ceiling to your casing to your walls to your baseboards to your doors and it's one color that goes throughout in this house we chose White Dove it's one of our very favorite whites we use it in many of our projects and we wanted everything to be painted wiped up the bathroom we chose to make it slightly larger by taking a little chunk out of one of the bedrooms we did this because it was our one bathroom that we all share and we love sharing it we have two sinks with lots of storage underneath we wanted the materials to feel very neutral and monotone we chose to do dark Cabinetry and a medium toned Chevron style flooring there's some applied molding in there with crown details and then the plumbing fixtures we wanted to do them in black black finish is really indestructible and quite Hardy for the four of us that have to get ready in the morning the room in the middle is the smallest bedroom and my daughter Ava has that bedroom we needed to maximize the storage by putting in a floor-to-ceiling closet system and we made her bed into more of a sofa bed so it's a place for her to chill and relax but also at night she can sleep there the back bedroom is for my oldest daughter and she wanted it to feel pretty and light so we gave that to her with an old-fashioned bed a really great ceiling Medallion and a light fixture and then some really soft drapery at the window in my second floor hallway there's a tiny little when you go up this narrow this used to be our office when we first started the company and then when we moved out we were left with this bonus room and we didn't know what to do with it originally we thought that we would put our principal bedroom up there but it didn't feel right after all of the years of walking up and down the stairs it was quite tiring so I knew I wanted to be on the second floor so this base just became a guest Suite when I come into this house I feel like I want to pinch myself it's exactly how I envisioned it everything has a place it's very easy to tidy up and put everything away my kids love it we all flop on the sofa and watch movies or my husband goes to his record station this house is just very easy living [Music] foreign

Channel: House & Home

Views: 221,137

Keywords: House & Home, House, Home, Decor, Decorating, Decorated, Design, Designer, Decorate, Decorator, Interiors, Interior Design, Interior, House Tour, Home Tour, Homes, Architect, Architecture, Style, Styling, Stylist, Inspo, Inspiration, Tips, Advice, Expert, Ideas, Best, Beautiful, family home, home renovation, kitchen reno, dark kitchen, custom cabinetry, living room, home design, furniture, bedroom, dining room

Id: j8EnLaNtcIs

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023