Before _ After_ A Cozy Family Home In The Suburbs Gets A Fresh Facelift

We are in a little suburb just north of Toronto and my client approached me to do some updates to her house. For a while they looked at moving. She has three teenage kids so they were maybe going to move but they decided you know their house does have really good bones so they really wanted to renovate and stay where they were. The client really wanted to update specifically the The kitchen had an old red tile with mosaic inlays. It had really low ceilings with these octagon cutouts so that was where the starting point was but they did know that if they started that it would snowball into other things so they were prepared to do the family room, the dining room, most of the main floor. You know we're taking an older home and we're updating it so we can't go too crazy but we just wanted to lighten it up. We wanted to brighten it up and adding in that warmth was really really important. They've lived in the house for many years so she knew exactly what she wanted. It's not like she wanted to move the kitchen to the other side of the house or anything. She liked the layout we just needed to update it so we added a lot of fun things such as you know a mixer lift for her KitchenAid mixer. We added lots of shelving, a coffee station, a pantry, lots of food storage for those big Costco runs. The palette is a little bit lighter but we wanted to bring that warmth in so we did a nice white oak stained island but in a lighter finish. Again the floors used to be tile which is really hard on your back when you're in there constantly cooking and moving around so we actually brought the hardwood right in. We matched the width to the original hardwood which is that thinner width but we really wanted to maintain that. We didn't want to replace the floors throughout the entire house so that brings a lot of warmth too and then behind the range we really wanted to do something a little bit more open. She cooks a lot so she didn't want a lot of cabinets there or open shelves that get greasy when you're cooking so we did a really cool antique brick. It's actually just a veneer and it's a faux brick so it's really easy to clean. The family really convenes in the kitchen breakfast and informal dinner things like that so we really wanted to keep a table there but we didn't want anything too heavy so we wanted a glass table the light can filter through the entire space and really open up. Because it's a glass table it's nice and light and airy we wanted to just ground it a little bit so we brought the black in above the table as well. So that carries through the entire house. We set the stage there and then you know the family room's open to the kitchen so we brought that pallet right in there. It's actually a sunken family room so it's really fun that you see it from up in the kitchen and you can come down into it. There's a big sectional sofa that's feather filled. They used to have that old granite fireplace we actually tinted all the stone to be a nice light gray to bring that palette right into the family room with that wood beam mantle that ties in with the wood in the kitchen. The family room already actually had the shiplap on the ceiling but it was painted a really yellowy color so we just brightened it up by painting it white and then I really as soon as I saw this room I wanted to add beams. So adding the two beams, adding that light fixture, painting everything white, adding some moldings above the windows things like that to just really cozy it in and make it a great space for entertaining. I love using all different textures so we have the rug, we have the sofa, we have some poofs in front of the fireplace to make it really cozy so everything is kind of a different texture but within the same tone. So it's not competing but it's just really lovely and then we brought in a wood coffee table to really ground the space. There used to be this see-through hutch into the dining room but because we had a breakfast nook and we have a dining room and we have all these things that on top of the client wanted a lot of built-ins like a wine fridge, a fridge freezer, lots of pantry storage and a coffee bar we basically closed that up made the dining room a little bit more formal and created that kitchen dining room space so it was really fun to kind of separate the spaces when it was before open. We added in the ceiling beams, we added in the mill work, a lot of glassware things like that that they could just keep in there that they're going to use when they actually have formal dining and then one of my favorite pieces in there is the Lindsay Cowell's wall coverings. I just love her stuff and I wanted to use it somewhere in this house. It's just really really nice and tone on tone but it's a bold pattern so we put that at the back of the built-in and I think it turned out great. The mudroom is really fun because it used to be a laundry room. She talked a lot about her dog and how it has to come in right into the kitchen and there's water everywhere so I said you know why don't you move your laundry just down the steps a little bit and we'll put a mudroom here so we actually added a door to the outside that the dog can come in. We put a dog wash in there, there's a sink and in this room we really wanted to do a color so we did this really beautiful greeny blue cabinetry with gold hardware which I just loved. We designed this really cool what I call a modern barn door so it's a half opening door so that if the dog is wet they can leave him in there and just have half the door shut and he's actually huge so he can still look into the kitchen. Kind of a fun little detail that was very personal to them. In the laundry room area it just wasn't functional for them. There was a closet when you walked in and it was very closed off and tight so we decided to take that out and now we just have a really nice bench when you walk in from the garage that everyone can tuck their shoes under with some hooks so that everyone can just hang their jackets when they come in and we actually did some really cool touch latch doors there that we can put lots of shoes underneath of the stairs. Right off the foyer we have a powder room. We really wanted to make a little bit of an impact in there so we did a really fun wall covering. I always love doing a powder room a little bit more bold because you can. You're not in there all the time. Your guests find it fun so I really liked to bring that to life for her. The primary suite started with just the bedroom. Again it was kind of a discussion where the client didn't really know what to do. She knew she wanted to update it and it wasn't really functioning well for them. Their closet was down this little skinny hallway with an angled roof and it was very dark. Now they have a brand new large walk-in closet. They also have some storage there for seasonal things. We had her move her bed to an opposite wall. We actually closed in a window because she had a lot of south facing windows already. We weren't scared to do that because it's not like we were blocking much light. So now when you walk in you actually see the entire bed and then we put barn board on the roof there which is a little bit of a different thing but we really wanted to bring in and make it really cozy and they have this big cathedral ceiling. The bathroom actually became smaller which they were okay with because they wanted storage for their clothes not so much a huge bathroom. So we created this hallway where the closet used to be and there we put lots of storage along the one wall. We put some sconces to make it nice and bright and in there we did a large walk-in shower, a freestanding tub, a double vanity. So we got everything that we needed within this small space. The entire shower I wanted to do in a pattern tile so some sort of a mosaic. Again it's very light. Some of the tiles have this little antiquing to them this little cracking which is really fun so it just brings in that rustic feeling while still being really bright and it just makes it really really nice to be in. We were brought in by Allaire Homes Forest Hill. They actually recommended us for the job which was fantastic. Seeing the family enjoy it it's just so great for me to see and you just feel so cozy when you're in here. I always I tell her that I'm going to come cook in her kitchen with her because it's so fun.