Inside a Thameside London Apartment Inspired by the English Countryside

Hi, house and home. My name is Phoenix Gray. I am the principal designer of Phoenix Gray Design and welcome to my home. This is a 750 square foot condo, which is very small. But we, I feel like, actually made the best of what we could with such a small footprint, with utilizing as much possible storage as we could and really all the features to really show you that if you live in a small space, it can still be beautiful as well. I was quite serious on camera when we were filming this whole series that I got to give input in the bathroom and the coffee station. I didn't really have any objections to what Phoenix wanted to design. I knew from the beginning that he had a vision. We have a similar level of taste and aesthetic. And I knew that I could trust him. This was his baby. And I was just really happy to be along for the ride. The kitchen is the biggest change we had in this entire place. We added this massive island that most people would think we were crazy for. For me, I love cooking and I love hosting. And being able to have a functional kitchen in such a small space was like that was the cherry on top. This is a Calcata Fabricati, or also known as an oyster. When I first started design 15 years ago, this was the very first slab that I saw when I went to school. And I told myself, like, one day I'm going to be able to have my dream kitchen. And this is the stone I'm going to have. It balances on each side as well with all the finishes. Everything has a visual weight that makes it look perfect, in my opinion. You mentioned you do most of the cooking. Does he do any cooking? He tries. I get to have my Vanna White moment. And here's the dishes. Oh my gosh, I'm K-Mart the steward. Vanna White. He does help, but I would say I do probably 99% of the cooking and cleaning in this kitchen. Introducing my favorite part of our apartment, my little coffee station. I love it. I think it turned out so beautiful. It's sectioned off into different stations. We have the countertop here, which allows us to have the kettle and any machines that we want. And then we have the upper cabinets and floating shelves above that we have enough storage. And then everything is sort of hidden away in our drawers down below. I also love that it lights up. It is very fancy and I feel fancy every morning. I have my espresso. And also we have hidden pantry storage. You don't want to see anything. You know, you're in a gay person's home when nothing is in sight. So you can keep that or remove that. That is totally up to you. Funny enough, before I met Phoenix, I had those dishes on my like vision board, which is crazy. Like that's a little psychotic who like dreams of dishware. But I love Anne de Moniester as the designer. And I was like, one day I will have these in my home. And when we were thinking about what dishware to put here, I just showed them to Phoenix. And he's like, oh, these are beautiful. They're actually almost perfect for the way that we had designed this kitchen. So this just goes to show you that manifestation is real. Or if you put enough pressure on someone to buy something, you can manifest whatever you want. So that's what I'm going with. Because it was such a small footprint, the appliances were one of the first things we actually selected with Bosch, because what's great about Bosch is they have all of their appliances actually utilized best for small spaces. I wanted to make sure that whatever appliances we were putting in complemented the design, but also the function of the space. So we actually chose an induction cooktop and a wall oven to put it underneath. And this allowed us to have that seamless integration of the stone that carries all the way through to amplify the actual look of the bookmatch instead of cutting it right down the middle and having that slide in range. This is the flex induction. And what's really great about it is it has three zones. On the far left, it has one full panel that allows you to have multiple pans or one full large one, while we have the large and the smaller option on the other side as well, which makes it really versatile for small spaces. The wall oven is fantastic because it's a black stainless steel. It matches so beautifully with the black cabinets instead of having that higher contrast that you would typically have with a stainless steel. And it is fingerprint proof, which is a dream come true for any appliance that you are constantly touching. So a lot of people are going to ask where the hood fan is. This is what Bosch does so well, is everything is completely hidden and integrated. So the unit here is actually underneath the cabinets and it is the same depth as the upper. So you would never know it's there. And what's even better is that through the Home Connect app, it operates as soon as I turn the induction or the oven on, which is fantastic because we wanted the star of the show to be the marble in this kitchen. All of the appliances complement it. So the panel ready fridge and freezer is great because you wouldn't even know it's here. And that's when you know you have a great designed kitchen when everything else is hidden. And as you can see in my freezer, all I have right now is the leftover meatballs I did not cook and Anthony's favorite ice cream. We will fill it next time you come by. Another really great feature about this fridge is it has a built in water filtration system and not one of those ones that you have on the outside. It is built in on the inside itself, which makes everything seamless. And once again, the dishwasher is panel ready and completely hidden. One of my personal favorite features, that LED that projects to the floor to let you know how much time is left on the cycle itself. And another favorite feature, of course, is the third rack to organize all of your cutlery instead of just plopping them on the bottom. The living room is actually quite small because we extended the entire length of the kitchen. So the living room itself, I want to help kind of amplify the design with a lot of the finishes. But because it was on the smaller scale, it was designed specifically for just Anthony and I. We have a small sofa that fits just both of us. We have a small little ottoman. And it's more of the design features that just have more of a softer, more motion fluid effect to a lot of the finishes that also complement the stone as well. The flooring is actually a double chain link herringbone. And I'm going to say that we were probably the first people, at least in Toronto, to probably have a floor of this style because we've done a lot of softer shapes in this renovation. I want to make sure that design language is carried through from every finish we put in. So although we get that same sense of motion, it has almost that like softness to it. And it's actually quite funny because someone called them popsicle sticks for flooring, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. But I think it's a good testament to see how people relate different shapes and styles to what they have as a memory as well. When we first got this unit, it was a two bedroom and it had absolutely no storage in it whatsoever. So right off the kitchen, we actually converted the other bedroom into a full walk-in closet. Now I'll show you the most controversial part of our home, the walk-in closet that was originally a bedroom. As you can see, my partner and I have a few pieces of clothing that were not going to fit in your standard condo. So this was honestly a dream come true. To have a literal walk-in closet is something I've always wanted. And I never thought we would actually have this in a condo. I've spent a lot of time in closets in my life, and I would have stayed in there if it was as nice as this closet. This was a special request for this closet, because as you can tell, everything is designed very much higher than me. So I literally have to be on tippy toes. But what was great about this piece here is that I can actually pull down and get access to all of my suits really easily. And so even though this room is definitely taller, I can still easily reach for things. I love the depth. And also we wanted to maximize how small the space was. So gaining access to the storage at the top by going all the way to the ceiling. We have so much hidden storage. We have really deep drawers and we have these really beautiful display windows for all of our shoes and handbags. So it really does feel like a store in here. And it's nice to actually play dress up every morning and walk over to our mirror and our foyer. And you just have everything be really functional as well as beautiful. I've always had this philosophy whenever I'm designing a space that your foyer is the first impact. It sets the precedent when you first walk into the space. And we don't really have a foyer. We have a hallway. You're even lucky to have it entered to most Toronto condos. Because it was so small, I wanted to give it a lot of texture, a lot of detail. So that full sized mirror, when you first walk in, which I know some people are going to say is against the whole feng shui, really helps expand that space. When you walk in, you don't feel as crammed. On both walls and on the ceiling, we did picture frame moulding to give it that real cool sense of depth and perception of all those lines leading to the mirror and then reflecting back in it as well. The paint is actually a Kadora finish, which mixes with the custom black that we made, and they trowel it on similar to a lime wash. But what's really cool about the Kadora finish is it has almost that metallic sheen to it. So the way light hits it reflects differently each time you look at it. Every time you come home, it always feels a little bit different. We have two full bathrooms in this place, which we are very lucky for. So I designed them both very differently, one for myself and then one for Anthony. I feel like any person who loves green is obnoxious about it. I love green. I have so many green pieces of clothing and items. It's my favourite colour. And I've always dreamed of a green bathroom. And it turned out beautiful. When we saw the stone, that avocados really just screamed at me. I was like, this is the one. And I'm happy I didn't have to fight too hard to win that battle because the bathroom turned out so beautiful. We did a full coloured wrench, which we also did in the Kadora finish. And then we have an avocados quartzite, which is a full slab that we bookmatched in the shower. And then we also brought on to the vanity as well. Because this is technically the powder room that the guests are going to use. I wanted to make it really impactful, but also have that almost hotel moody vibe so when you come in, it feels very sensorial on all counts. The principal ensuite we did as an oxblood finish and the colour we actually customised to match the Calcutta viola slab that we did for the full shower. So for this one, I once again, I wanted that really insane, explosive sense of movement for the full slabs in the shower. And then also for the vanity that we carried out on it as well. Because I wanted to really carry that essence of like dark, really intimate styles throughout this entire unit. We did the bedroom completely coloured wrenched in black as well, which I know is very risky for a lot of people. We're not hanging out in there. We're literally going to bed 99% of the time. So it's nice that when we have that full blackout, it's so dark in there. It's actually alarming that I have to raise in the middle of the night the blinds a little bit just so I could see and go to the bathroom. The rope lamps are actually from Luke Lamp that we have on each side of the headboard in our bedroom as well. I wanted something that was not only sculptural, but playful. And what's really great about these lights is that you can customise them every time you touch them, because I'm one of those people that gets bored of one thing very quickly. This allows me to change it up and it feels new every single time. I have a really hard time leaving in the morning to go to my office. It's really challenging. But I think the most rewarding part is like waking up in the morning when I come home from the gym, being able to see everything that I've always wanted that I can now have. I'm very grateful for it. And showering in that bathroom is a dream come true. Sharing this entire renovation process has been really overwhelming, but really fun online. I knew that my style is not for everyone. It's very dark. It's very moody, especially in such a small, tight space to make it. I know that there was going to be some backlash of people that always have their opinions. But I always tell people like when you're designing a space, it's for you. And because this was for my partner and I, we made every decision exactly how we wanted. And I feel like we had a lot of really positive results that came from it. I have a lot of clients that have now hired me because they love my personal style and how I've been able to showcase it online as well. And I feel like it's it's really opened up a lot of doors for people to see that if you live in a small space and if you want dark colours, you want crazy marble, you can make it happen. You can have such great design in small spaces.