Tour A Cosy City Condo With A Serene Palette

This location is the fourth move for my client and I have been involved in the other three as well. Anne and Greg live here with their two beautiful cats and four daughters that come and go now and then. This is a very different animal in that it's a condo and it's a downsizing for sure from the last home. However, it has all the bells and whistles of what one would want when they're moving out at a certain age having gotten used to a home. We did talk a little bit about what was coming. I think I left that up to Anne in terms of what she wanted to keep. We did talk about the lighting and what we could use, what would work in terms of the vibe, but mostly everything here is new. There are always challenges and certainly working on a condo in this case there were a number of surprises, but that's what design is really. It's the challenge of working through the problems and coming up at the other end with what you want, beauty and function. The front hall area is very particular. It has 24-25 feet of length and it's quite generous in terms of the space. It is meant to be almost gallery-like because we have one very long wall. All Canadian art on the wall and one of the paintings is by Anne's aunt, a renowned artist, Helen McNichol. Her palette is exquisite and in fact it sets the tone for the space. You make your way to the focal point which is a treasured family heirloom at the end of the hallway. The beautiful old carved mahogany chest of drawers that has spanned a test of time and so that as well as some of the little moments along the hallway are quiet and hushed and interesting and lead you down the hallway to the unfolding and what I consider to be a wow moment. Rounding the bend you enter into a space that is wide open and quite spectacular. You have to take in the view. There's no way around it. It's just a vast wide panorama that is quite spectacular. The colours of the floor lead the way all the way through and are harmonious with all of the cabinetry, all of the storage units. Everything is very similar. The muted tones on the walls, they're soft. There are some lavenders and beiges and mauves and the palette is so so subdued but it's very special. The kitchen in this room is fairly limited and it's very furniture-like and the island is not screaming kitchen. The countertops are caesar stone concrete. They have three different versions of concrete. This is the lightest and just quite soft and beautiful. It blends with everything that we've picked. For storage purposes we needed a lot of it and we needed space so we carved more space out of the kitchen living room area to create what I consider to be my favorite room in this space, the pantry. It's a quiet also very hushed room. It's lined with beautiful paper. The cabinetry is floor to ceiling. There is oodles of storage in there so I love it for the light and I love it for the luster and I love it for the display. There's so much I want to say about this room. It is a three-part room. There's a kitchen at one end. There's the dining space. These two areas work together but then there's the dining space and the sitting area which also work together beautifully but I can also say that the windows which were one of the design elements that we wanted to honor and not fight with are pretty major. It allows the light in and light is a big component of this space and the seasons also have a huge impact. We wanted to work with the windows so from floor to ceiling we have filmy sheer curtains that have a little bit of detail on them and you can see through them when they're pulled. They're gauzy. They just filter the light. There's a harmony of shape almost. The lines of the furniture and all of the softness of the flower petals and the round tables and all of that was by design. The architecture pretty much dictated the design and one of the most important pieces of the architecture is the pillar that is behind me that we covered in a small tile that was very laborious to do but oh so important and this design feature is so simple and so spare but so spectacular in all kinds of light. It kind of appears after you're in the room. You don't really see it until you're here. The principal bedroom is a generous size. We needed privacy but we also wanted the feeling of cozy. The limitations of the palette we played a bit with in there just mixing it up a bit with some darker things and then some storage items, beautiful bookshelves, the bed. It's a beautiful cozy space. The ensuite is also a stunning room. It's very long. It's all white marble. Played a bit with texture in there. There is a vanity that is wood. It has a warming feeling but everything about that room is so easy on the eye, so soft and lovely and your eye travels to the back focal wall which is also marble in small squares but with some dimension to it. The light is unexpected over the tub but it pulls it back a little bit. The vibe is elegant but pared back. It's a beautiful nourishing room to be in, very spa-like. The den was going to be the room with the TV because it has a door and can be closed and the rest of the space is wide open so TV in that room and also there's a niche, a big deep one, so we've put a desk in there, books and it's a quiet little room to go into. One of the things that you might miss when you're coming in from the front door is the left side as you're walking down the hallway which houses a laundry room. We put ambient wallpaper on the wall. It's a pretty place to work and that is the spot where we chose to put the kitty litter and Anne found the most adorable cat door which we have put into the bottom of the door to the laundry room. It kind of reminds me of the old mouse door from the cartoons. The powder room is just quietly tucked off the hallway. There is a really pretty hand-blocked paper on the wall with little birds, just a special little space. It's very harmonious. There's nothing that really jumps out at you. In terms of colour selections, both of us really, really wanted to have muted, soft, easy colours. One of the major design elements in this condominium is, I'd say, simplicity. It was the mantra. Just because something is simple doesn't mean that it's easy but it is really about putting together small details and making small decisions and showing restraint and pulling back and making it kind of a pared-back luxurious environment. I think the big secret in moving to a condominium from a house is knowing in advance what you're bringing and what you're leaving behind. You want to be able to pare back as much as you possibly can and I think that, in this case, Anne did a masterful job of getting rid of most things. She moved in and there was a place for everything and we knew where everything was going to go and that's the way to do it. I think that, once moving into a condominium, mostly you do not miss your house. It's your own home when you walk in the door. You don't really imagine that you're in a condominium other than looking out at the view. So I think this move is definitely going to be a final move to condo. However, I don't know, given the track record, maybe there might be a move in the future.