Home trends: Designing with colour

“We wanted the light,” says the homeowner, widening her arms as if to summon it.  

No need to, really. This two-storey apartment in the Yonge and Davisville area is bathed in sunshine pouring in through a 20-foot-tall atrium with windows that wrap a west-facing wall.  

When the homeowners bought the unit in the boutique building, the atrium was an enclosed porch, and it was freezing.  

“There were space heaters plugged in everywhere,” she says. The units were useless in the high-ceilinged space. The 1980s-built condo also had tired honey-toned wood, dated bathrooms and a kitchen and dining room that was boxed in, making the space feel smaller than 1,475 square feet.  

It wasn’t an inspiring backdrop for showcasing the paintings and pottery the couple had amassed on their travels while living abroad in countries including in Japan and France. 

Still, the location near the homeowner’s mom was ideal. Together with her mother, the couple had relocated to Canada from the U.K. during COVID. They figured they would do a test run through one winter to see how the home functioned. “It’s much easier to renovate after living in a place,” says the homeowner.  

But the job turned full-gut, so they enlisted interior designers Peter Brooks and Fay Antonoglou of BedfordBrooks Design for a down-to-the-studs revamp. Alongside the custom builders Alair Homes Forest Hill, the team created a catwalk on the second floor. They also added a full bathroom to the main floor (“If you break your leg, you still need to shower,” as one of the homeowners sees it) and a third bedroom to the second floor. A sleek new wood-burning Stûv fireplace with a slot for logs was set into the drywall to cozy up the suite, and they lined the floors in herringbone wood, a Frenchy nod to the Haussmann apartments in Paris, the homeowners’ favourite city. 

The catwalk was the most challenging element. “It’s a wide condo and we didn’t want any posts or walls below it carrying that catwalk,” says Andrew Black, partner of Alair Homes Forest Hill. “We used a huge 20-foot-long steel beam,” which posed a problem: “You’re definitely not getting that through the elevator.”  

It was a logistically difficult process, says Black. “We carefully needled the 1,500-pound steel beam through the window system. One shift on that crane and the whole thing would come crashing down.” 

Where before the second floor was blocked off in drab drywall, the glassed-railing catwalk now creates a vantage point overlooking the downstairs, notes Brooks, while the new staircase with its floating treads links beautifully upstairs.  

“We knew that if we designed a catwalk it would make the whole place feel special,” says Brooks. The homeowner’s collection of blue and white dishware and chinaware hangs on the wall in that second-storey space, a mini gallery of sorts. Rejigging the second floor also allowed the designers to create three bedrooms. One is dedicated to quilting, one of the homeowners’ passions; another is a small indoor gym.  

Opening up the atrium was also a major improvement. “The black-framed windows echo a Parisian apartment,” says Brooks. Another nod to the couple’s life abroad is the “snug room,” he says, referring to the cozy, den-like British-inspired space off the foyer. Level 5 drywall holds up to the thick, dark blue luminous paint that blankets the room, including the built-in millwork. The spot is ideal for watching TV or napping (the sofa pulls out). 

“These are all our personal pieces we’ve been carting around for 20 years,” says the homeowner, gesturing to the snug room’s lotus lamps from Hong Kong and the kabuki prints of Japanese men.  

Bespoke millwork for storage trails along the wall opposite the kitchen, where the designers cleverly created a secret bar with glass shelves, wine cubbies and a yellow-painted backsplash. 

But it’s the kitchen, or more specifically the waterfall island fashioned from  marble with ragged streaks of black, that steals the show (it also dazzles in one of the bathrooms).  

“When we went shopping at Ciot, we just thought it was stunning. It makes such a statement,” says Brooks. Behind the island are warm wood cabinets by Lucvaa Kitchens; they also did the millwork throughout the condo, and a ledge for leaning artwork.  

The owners are thrilled to finally be able to showcase their pieces. One favourite in the dining area is the colourful painting by Toronto artist David Grieve. “That’s the tree [in the] view from our dock,” says the homeowner, referring to their cottage in the Kawarthas.  

As for that inadequate-heating issue, it’s all hunky dory now, though fixing it wasn’t without its glitches, says Black: “Merging old and new infrastructure into an aging building [is difficult].” 

But walking through this shipshape condo, with its splashes of colour and head-turning artwork, you’d never know it.