DESIGNER HOME TOUR | Tour 2 Beautiful Modern Elegant Homes With Me!

Hey everyone, it's Nick. Welcome or welcome back to my channel. Okay. This is a very different video than I've ever done before. I'm a little bit nervous. I'm getting up and out of the chair, which is kind of my safe place. So this is a little bit new for me, but I thought, you know, I wanted to do this type of video for a while now where I have some great interior design friends and people that have really beautiful spaces. And I thought, you know, why not tour these wonderful spaces, get to know the designer or the homeowner and start to see kind of what makes them tick and why they make the choices that they do. And I thought I would share that with you all here on YouTube. So today the fantastic Karen Bond, who is an interior designer here in Vancouver has agreed to tour two spaces with us today, two apartments, very different. Let's go check it out. It's so nice to see you. Okay guys, this is Karen Bond. She has House of Bond. So she's an amazing interior designer. I'm going to say like one of the best in the city. I'm just, I'm not going to lie to you. That's like just, she's inspired me a lot. And she has House of Bond. She also has a Netflix show and a YouTube channel. And I actually hired Karen back in like 2013 and 2014. She did a couple of projects for me and she did, of course, a fabulous job. And we both ended up on YouTube, which is both ended up on YouTube. Cause we never talked about it since we've seen each other. Okay. So we are here at this show suite and we've got two to see today. And Karen has agreed to give us a fantastic tour. So we're going to see sort of what makes her tick, why she made the design decisions that she did. We check out kind of what her theories is on like different trends and I know your YouTube channel. So are you going to comment on what you love and hate in here? That's okay. I'm sure I love everything because Karen makes good decisions, but we'll see. Okay. So walk us through this design and why you, what's the concept behind this suite? So let's give some context to you guys. So this project was put together by Hair Builders Group, a really fantastic client and very prominent builder. And what they're doing is building over 300 condos in this area. So what was fun about this project is we got to come in, design the presentation center. We have two model homes, so we're standing in a one bedroom right now. You guys will get to see a two bedroom as well. And what's really unique about this project is that we did one design, two ways. I think we just jump off with the contemporary scheme. I mean, this one bedroom is a little bit more edgy. It's a little bit cooler. It caters to like a younger demographic, but should we start with the kitchen? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So the scheme throughout the entire project, the palette is oak, white and black. And so we wanted to play with that two ways. In the contemporary scheme, what we've got is this fantastic clean contemporary kitchen. So we've got flat panel, white uppers. We've got this stacked white tile, black hardware, so black plumbing fixtures, black hardware. And then the lower cabinets are the oak scheme with a thin shaker profile. First of all, I love that you broke up the white to have something different on the bottom because so often people just stick to the all white kitchen, which is timeless. It is beautiful, but is like a pretty safe and a little bit boring. Yes. And so I think just playing with these with a little bit of a different finish, I think is a good choice. So walk me through. So you went with the shaker, the slim shaker on the bottom, which I feel is a little bit trendy right now because it's got a little bit more detail, but it's not so super stuffy. Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah. And I think like the slim shaker is just a nice take on the traditional wide shaker. So in a condo project like this, when you're building over 300 of them, we're always trying to do something that will cater to a wide demographic of people. So we can't push the envelope too far. But for me doing a contemporary kitchen, I wanted there to be a little bit of texture, which is why we've got the flat panel uppers. So very contemporary clean lines, little bit of texture with the backsplash tile. We've got a solid surface countertop, but we didn't want to pull this all the way up because to me that would just read a little too simple, a little too clean. And then that's where this thin shaker comes in a little bit more texture, a little bit more visual interest. Cause if this was just a flat panel again, I feel like it might be a little bit flat. Yeah. I think this makes sense for an audience or a homeowner that's going to actually want to see that. It's interesting, but safe at the same time. Kind of, you know what I mean? If that makes sense. What I love about this kitchen too is the black island. So I'm just going to point that out because I mean, I really wanted to go all black lowers. And in a way I kind of feel like that might've been really successful. I think you could have done it. Yeah. Right. But I do love that the island is black. I think that adds like a little punch and a pop. It's a statement island. And then it ties in the black faucet and black hardware really nicely. Repetition of black in throughout the kitchen. That's very cool. I'm also noticing putting the microwave in the island. Is this something that is happening? Like that seems to be more and more. Well, I do it all the time. It's not ergonomic, but it's like nicer. Cause like microwaves aren't that attractive. So like it feels like it's ergonomic wise, not necessarily the greatest option, but visually it's fantastic. So I'll tell you where this came from. Let me tell you, years ago, I did a beautiful huge house. It was 9,000 square feet and it was the first time I had put the microwave in the island. Yeah. That particular microwave was a drawer microwave. So you hit a button, it slides out and you can easily put your bowl of soup or your coffee or whatever into the microwave. And then it just slides back in. Ever since then I was like, I'm obsessed with the microwave in the island. Like why would you put it up here? It's such an eyesore. Right? Yeah. So if you're doing a new, if you have the option and you're running electrical and all that into the island anyway. So like, who cares? Okay. Let's move out of the kitchen. Yeah. Let's talk about the living room. Beautiful. Like I said, this scheme really was designed to cater to a younger demographic, maybe millennials, maybe first time homeowners. Whenever I'm designing a project like this, I like to think of a muse. Yeah. And so in this case, our muse is Claire, a young hairdresser. She's tattooed. She's cool. She's got a cat, single, dating, and this is her living room. We've got this beautiful blue velvet sofa. This comes from Rove Concept. I love that it's low to the ground. I love the pop of color and I love the texture of the velvet playing into this whole black and white theme. I want it to go big with photography artwork. We've got some black millwork here, display millwork, which I love because you kind of hide the television, which like this is a great way and it sort of blends into the millwork and you can't see it. Yeah. And that's huge. And then we've got this great black and white rug and then this beautiful marble coffee table, which also feels a little bit like a statement coffee table in the living room. Gorgeous. Coffee table is from CF Interiors. A lot of the photography came from Desenio. Oh, okay. This is a great tip because I love buying artwork that's inexpensive, but then splurging on the frame, like doing a custom frame. That way you can get exactly what you want. When do you do like this beautiful pop of color? When is that done right? Like, do you know what I mean? Like cause so often I tell people what is a safer option is to like take that blue and carry it through in different ways. But you, I was just going to say, you know what I hate is when people do that. When people do that, you're like got a little blue here and a little blue there. So you don't, so this is just a massive statement of a pop of color and it works here. But like how do you do that? I think it works because it is its own. It's got its own texture. It's got its own color. It's, and I'm not pulling that blue in anywhere else, especially for styling and decorating. That is actually one of my big no-nos. I feel like that ends up being a little too matchy matchy. And I would also say that the rest of the space and all the different other colors and materials and choices that you made is cohesive. So it kind of gave you the space to put that pop. Is that fair? Because you do still have, it's a very monochromatic space in other ways. Exactly. So it's still cohesive. And you need, I think we're both right. We are both right. We are both right. And I liked that you did the Tom Ford book, Karen, cause I've never seen that before. Never, never. This is the first. You are a trailblazer. Am I blowing your mind right now? That Tom Ford book is going to be everywhere you watch. No, it's cool. I like it. It's neat. Okay. Let's go check out the bedroom. One of my favorite things to do in a bedroom is a custom headboard, which is what we've got here. It's like a dark charcoal suede material in sort of this, um, like tufted linear pattern. And then we've got a ledge for some artwork. I didn't want the bedroom to look too curated. That's why you've got different size art. It's just sort of like leaning on this ledge. It's not like hung and perfectly. Same thing with the side tables. I don't know if you notice this, but the side tables are not the same. Yeah. It's asymmetrical. It's asymmetrical. So we've got a wood side table, which fits I feel like with the style that you've gone with this contemporary space. Yeah. Now question, because I know a lot of people are thinking, okay, custom headboard, super cool. But like I go to Ikea or I go to Wayfair or I go to maybe article. And if I'm feeling fancy, I might go to restoration hardware, but like how does one get a custom headboard? Like where did you source this? You can look up custom furniture manufacturers. So like we will do custom beds, custom sofas. They'll do a headboard. Sometimes a mill worker will do it. And what's really great is often you can just have a good inspiration photo and say, this is what I'm looking for. And they should be able to do it. Cause I think like some people, like for me, I didn't grow up with a sense of like design was not, I don't want to throw my bum under the bus, even though I do, I throw my bum under the bus on my channel all the time. But I do think that like, if I wanted countertops, I went to Ikea. I went to Home Depot. Those were our options. We didn't know, a stone yard did not dawn on me until basically I met Karen. So like I didn't know that was a thing. And so some people, I think they want it. Well, I'm so happy I got to introduce you to the world of stone yards. You did. You did. It's a, it's a fun world. And now it's like, you just can't get enough when you actually, I think cause a lot of people, they don't know what to do and they see these designers do this amazing work. When you just stick to those retailers that we all know, the Home Depots of the world, no shame in Home Depot, but at the end of the day, it's like, if you want this, where do you even start? A mill worker or a furniture manufacturer. Furniture manufacturers are probably a little bit easier to find. And even some vendors, like I've mentioned, uh, CF interiors where we've gotten a few of the pieces from, they will even do custom work. And what I love about this is, so standing in this bedroom, when you do a headboard, that's wall to wall, it kind of maximizes the space, right? It makes it feel a little bit bigger. If you have built-ins around your TV, that's always going to look a little bit better than taking a couple of book cases and just sort of, it's going to feel more custom. Yeah. It's going to feel more custom, a little bit more tailored. So love that. Okay. Okay. Shall we move on? So we're walking through the walk-in closet to the bathroom. Wow. This wallpaper. So this wallpaper is from one of my favorite wallpaper companies in the entire world. New Wall. They're based out of Toronto, but they have wallpaper collections that come from everywhere and anywhere. This particular piece was really inspired by tattoo art. Claire. Claire. She's tattooed. She's tattooed. And so this is just a big dramatic statement. Again, a very neutral bathroom. Some personality. Yeah. Cause this would have looked like been there, done that. If you had just done like a porcelain towel. Yeah. Right. Or just a paint color. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit flat, but this gives it a lot of personality. And again, I like that. It's kind of like white and we're just playing off the white and black. We talked about trendy versus like, is this a trend that's going to stay? Cause again, trendy can be timeless, but still just, you know, be having a moment. People are scared of wallpaper because they think it's horrible to take down. Is it something that you think. Don't be scared of wallpaper. I know. And it's you're right though, because it's like, okay, I've done done with the porcelain tile. So we did that. And now we're like, okay. Or a stone or whatever. What am I going to do with this other wall? I can either keep going or I could paint it. Yeah. And I can tell you 99% of the people would just paint it because they just, because it's like, well, it's easier to change. It's relatively cheap. And wallpaper is like intimidating. Yeah. But you're saying, don't be intimidated. Don't be intimidated. I mean, the great thing about a space like this is that it's not a huge space. It's not a huge bathroom. And so really you've got two walls ish, that you're applying wallpaper to. So don't be afraid that this is going to be something that's going to be super dated in five years. No. And if this was my place and if I could do whatever I wanted, I did have a client. So I couldn't, but if I could, I would even layer this with a piece of art, which I think would just give it a little bit more. Um, but the way that it is, I think it's still really cool. Okay. So this is the one bedroom. This is Claire's place. And now we're going to check out this another one, which is a little bit more traditional, but not stuffy. So yeah, not stuffy. That's right. It's a two bedroom. Okay. Should we start with the bath? Where, where would you, where would you like? Okay. Standing in the bathroom. So immediately you can see that this is a completely different vibe, right? This a little bit more traditional, a little bit more calm, same materials and base palette though. That's something I do want to point out. So we still have the solid surface marble looking countertops. We've got the black fixtures and hardware. The bathrooms all have white vanities and then black accents like the lighting of the mirror. But what's different in here is that we've got some traditional looking molding and then some wallpaper above. And this is entirely different than Claire's home. Yeah. Yeah. That's more New York. This is more Paris. Yeah. The style is very different. So if we walk into the dining room and kitchen area, you'll see just how different this actually is. Wow. See, I'm not a traditional guy. No, I would. No, I'm not Claire. I'm definitely not Claire. I think this would be probably where I would be. This is more, I think. Oh, but you're not saying that this is traditional. No, I'm saying this is a modern update, but it's a little bit more traditional than what we saw. Like already I see the shaker cabinets. We just pointed out the moldings. But I think this is really more what I would choose. Yeah. Which is surprising because I'm more of a contemporary person, I would say than I am a traditional person, but this is very comfy cozy. Well, let's start in the kitchen. Same base palette. So we've got the lower cabinets, which are oak. In this case, the island is oak. It's not black, but something that you notice straight away is that we've got the traditional shaker profile. So this is not the thin shakers, the traditional shaker. And then up above, we still have white uppers, but again, these are in a shaker profile. So already you're getting a little bit more sense of traditional millwork. Same tile on the backsplash. The only thing is that this tile was installed differently. So this is in a herringbone pattern. It's not a stacked pattern. And then we still have the same black faucets, black hardware. I would say in this whole space that probably brass or gold is sort of the base metal. Is that fair to say? But then you have a lot of black. Yeah. And you also have stainless steel. So can you walk me a little bit through like mixing metals? What are your thoughts? Cause it's very controversial on the channel. Should you mix metals? How do you mix metals? Do you? Don't you? Like, is it boring to not mix metals? Like, is it better just to use, to use one, but you've got basically three here. We're so used to seeing stainless steel appliances. I mean, that is like 99% of what is in the market. So I don't feel like that's an eyesore at all. Mixing it with the black. You've got the black and the stainless steel. That's easy. And then just layering in the gold. See, what we've done here is that the black you'll notice is not an accent in this home. No, it's only the hardware. So it's fixed elements, plumbing hardware. Whereas the gold comes in as an accent. So you see it in furniture, you see it in the picture frames, you see it in some of the styling and decor pieces. So that would be my tip is you can have one metal that's sort of like a base metal with on your fixed elements and then another metal that you layer in for decor. Yeah. Same metal for the same function. Exactly. So if you have drawer pulls, keep doing that. If you had like black drawer pulls on the uppers and maybe brass on the bottom, it wouldn't have worked as successfully. If you have like a black faucet here, but then over here you maybe have another sink or something like that. And you have brass that might not, or a pot filler in a different color. I know that would be weird. Same function, same metal. Exactly. Like when you're pointing to the, this and like imagine this in gold, I'd be like, well, I think that's just too much or chrome or something. That'd be a lot going on. Yeah. And I think you, you're right. Don't overthink it. Metals are metal. They're not going to go to style. I really think that's here to stay for a long time. I was going to say black fixtures here to stay. Yeah. I think it's here to stay. I don't think it's going anywhere. Some people are nervous about putting in black fixtures, but I think, it's hard to say because no one has a crystal ball, but I would say black is probably here to stay. I think black is here to stay for a while. Just like gold. Like I remember years ago, people were like, Oh my God, gold, gold, gold. And here it's still here. It's still here. It's still around. So this is where we're layering in the gold. And just to touch on mixing metals, like you can see that the hardware on the drapery is black, but we've got gold accents here. I love this gallery wall though. This is a little bit more structured, a little bit more balanced, a little more planned, but you got kind of a little bit funky with the frames, which I think is where the fun is. But the art itself is cohesive in a similar palette. Yes. Very neutral. So that's a good tip is if you're doing a gallery wall, I like to have a gallery wall where the palette is very similar, but then you can have fun with the frames. Agree. And just so we're clear. And also I love that the, the accent lighting, because I always say that like, don't forget your accent, especially over art, because this would have been not nearly as interesting had there been no accent lighting. Right. It would just, it would have been a nice gallery wall. Fine. But this, I just think. What I like about accent lighting. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What you're saying is that it really grounds and anchors a gallery wall. Yeah. The lighting is just from Wayfair. Wow. Wayfair. Oh, and I see we've got the caning here. Is this trendy caning? Or do we feel good about this long-term? I feel good about it long-term. I feel it is trending. It is trending. I mean, you see cane everywhere and actually during COVID they had like a shortage of cane. You couldn't get it because everybody wanted it, but it is trending. I think it's here to stay. I mean, this is like a very old material. You see this in chairs that were built in like the 1800s. Yeah. So I mean, this is here to stay. It's not going anywhere. If it was beautiful hundreds of years ago, beautiful now, it'd be fine in a decade. So again, don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. So the chair and the table, these are actually both from CF Interiors, a local vendor here. And then I really love this chandelier. This is actually from Circa Lighting. I love the scale and the pop of gold. Actually that's one of my favorite things is to have like really big oversized lighting. I've noticed that. Yeah. I noticed that also in the bedroom. I don't know if you guys called that, but the oversized lighting over the bed. Yeah. I just think it just adds so much to a room rather than having just like a really tiny light. Go big with the lighting. Yeah. Go for the statement. So that's Circa Lighting. And then speaking of statement lighting and oversized lighting, we are in the bedroom. The bedroom, what we decided to do here is a little bit more of like a calm space. So very layered with neutral tones. You're seeing like the beautiful linen and the soft grays and the beige. This bed is from Pottery Barn. And then rather than doing wallpaper, we wanted to do something a little bit different. So this is applied millwork, just painted. Super easy execution. Yeah. Really easy. Cool. I'm not a tufted headboard man myself, but no, but it works here in this style. Yes. That I think is, you know, that is true. It works for this space. It works for this space. And like this does, it is intended to cater to maybe a little bit of an older demographic, a little bit more traditional. It's good design, even if it's not my design. It's not my taste, but that's, that's not, that's not the end of the world. I mean, it kind of is, but. Well, it is here on this channel. Okay. Bathroom. The en suite. So again, you've got the, the master en suite has the oak lowers, same profiles in the kitchen, the wide shaker, black plumbing fixtures, black hardware, the tile. This is the same porcelain marble tile that you saw over in Claire's room, but completely different because you've got a beautiful, rich, dark grass cloth layered with some art. So, I mean, this bathroom just feels a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more agreed, right? Less tattoo is more grass cloth. So what's really unique about these condos is that you've got this outdoor indoor living situation. So the patios are actually, you can enclose them like this, which is very cool. You can open them right up. So you almost get this extra space, like an extra living room space. And that's how this was decorated and styled is you've got a nice, beautiful outdoor rug, big coffee table, huge sectional. This sectional we actually did custom. I mean, I love doing custom sofas in a space because you can tailor the sofa to fit the space. Exactly. Which is so important. So important. Yeah. It starts with the space, with the space planning. If you don't have good space plan, then it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Cookies to the materials and all the material choices that you made or whatever, all these little details just don't matter if people can, you know, move in the space properly. Okay. And then we've got one more bedroom, one more bedroom. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Keep that in there, please. So second bedroom. So the intent behind this space is to show a little bit of flexibility. So we've got queen size bed, tons of space around the bed, which is great, but we've also have a little den office nook. So in this case, we've converted the closet to this little office nook. The reason for that is we want to show what you could do. And there you go. You got a map of Paris. Just like I said. Oh, there you go. A lovely wall moldings, beautiful painted out. So that's it. That's our house tour. Thank you, Karen. That was amazing. It was so fun to see you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Nice to meet all of you guys. I'm going to put all of her social links and her YouTube channel and all the rest of it down in the description. Any products, by the way that we see here, I'm going to try to link as many as I can find myself. Hopefully, I can get those links from you and we can go from there. So thank you so much. This is wonderful. This is super cool. Thank you. Cool. Okay. So that's it for me for today, guys. I hope you really enjoyed this video. Comment below which one you like. Did you like the sort of chic neutral Parisian version of this design or do you prefer the contemporary black sort of Manhattan chic comment below and let me know. And of course you can always subscribe because I hope to do more of these. Let me know if you guys liked this video and I might do more tours like this because this was a lot of fun. So we'll see you all in the next video. Thanks a lot. Bye.