CAD Concepts for Clients

You may have difficulty visualizing a concept for your room.  CAD 3-D renderings can solve that problem!  Now I can show my ideas scaled accurately to your room dimensions, including ceiling height.  I can show you furniture selections, using what you have, or adding in  new.  Notice here how the dark pink lampshade blends into the background.  I chose an Oriental carpet in predominantly gold and blue hues as a contrast to the fuchsia walls.

Now with one swipe, I can change your walls to bright teal.  Do you like that better?

I've changed the carpet to red, and made it more tribal.  Now the blue chair stands out less, the pink-shaded standing lamp more.

I don't need to stop here!  I can make any change you might wish.  White walls?  Modern carpet?  Your wish is my command at this stage.  CAD concept renderings take the guesswork out of making choices with me.  Come along and experiment with me!

Further Thoughts on Colourless Interiors

Interiors follow fashion, that's a truism.  So, in fashion now, as in this photo by Gucci, we are seeing a riot of colours and patterns, placed together in what seems a careless way, but must be artful.  So why is it that current thought maintains, vigorously, that clean, spare interiors are what young moderns crave?  The thinking goes that we must be surrounded at home by a lack of colour stimulation of any kind because our minds are overloaded during the day with digital images.

The other argument is that we just don't like "stuff."  But we do like stuff, just so long as it's Post-Modern stuff.

Fashion cycles in and out, and minimalism will too, just as Canadiana, then retro-Victorian did.

What makes colour jarring is not colour itself, but mismatching hues or overly high contrast.  Choose colours that work together, and try using the same intensity of hue.  A calm but cozy feeling can result, if you play it right.  Admittedly, going this route is much more difficult, because colour has a visual weight all of its own, highly influenced by context.

My best advice is to play around until you get it right.  Here, I am searching for a paint colour as evidenced by the swatch on the wall.  The sofa and carpet have already been chosen and they're there to stay.  Is it this the final choice?  Time will tell.  Chances are, I'll let you know when I find what I'm looking for.  "Design is a patient search."

Create a Colour Scheme

Using art as a starting point for a colour scheme is a time-tested strategy.  Here, in fact, the art was chosen from the owner's collection AFTER the orchid wall colour was painted.

It is not an iron-clad rule that paint colour must be chosen last, although often that is the most obvious choice, since there are thousands of paint colours to choose from and that is not the case with other elements in your room..  On the other hand, your art, fabrics and furnishings need not match your walls exactly.

Here, the colours in the painting do actually harmonize with the wall colour.  Next, pillows were chosen with the Moroccan motifs of the painting in mind.  The black oblong one in the front brings out the black frame of the painting very nicely, and, now, everything belongs.

Colour is Your Friend, Really

Most of us here in Canada form our impressions of the perfect home from House and Garden TV, or from Canadian magazines.  These interiors are heavy on white, grey or beige backgrounds with colour provided by throw pillows, flowers and works of art.  Bold in colour they are not.

But I have just become a Certified UltimateStager™, and what did I discover???  Yes, of course houses must be staged for sale that way for one simple reason.  The warehouses that rent furniture for these stagings must of necessity keep their large pieces of furniture neutral.  And that sets the stage, so to speak, for all of Interior Design.  Colour as usually seen here in Canada is represented mostly in accessories.

I rebel.  I have been rebelling for my whole career.  Colour is free and it is your friend.  It creates a mood that all-white or grey just can't.  Use it with joy, and use it with my blessing if you need it, as I will continue to do.

This red kitchen by Martyn Bullard featured recently in Decor magazine proves my point.  It's special.  It envelops and warms you.  It excites you, perhaps.  Don't prefer red?  Then how about blue, green, yellow, pink, turquoise, purple and all of their countless variations and combinations.  You'll easily find them on paint chips.

Take the plunge.  If you can't be yourself in your home, then where can you be?  

High Art in a Custom Kitchen from the Past

As I've shown earlier on this page, the kitchens I designed and contracted in the past were each unique and highly customized. This is not the case today.  I have found that in designing my soon-to-be "custom" kitchen with standard cabinets fabricated off-site, that some things can be customized and others cannot. Often, you are halfway through your most efficient plan when you discover this.

But in the past, only the demands of the site limited your options.  This Annex kitchen shows what a highly skilled carpenter could achieve to create a luxe look.

Each drawer here is trimmed with a strip of "Octolam," a brass-coloured laminate which the carpenter has routered in to form a striped trim.  The pulls I selected are plexi with a brass centre, and they fit precisely onto the brass trim strip.

Here is a wall of cabinets with the trim placed vertically, and again the pulls integrate neatly with it. This kitchen is 25 years old, yet switch in modern appliances, add a suitable back-splash and granite or quartz countertops, and it would still be unique and lovely today, especially now that the warm metals are back on trend.

The size of this galley kitchen was dictated by the square footage the owners were allowed to add on to their house and what they wanted to achieve within it.  Their house is an Edwardian, and all trim reflects the oak trim in the rest of the house.

Here is a back view of the angled corner of the other side of this galley.  The corner is angled to provide ease of passage leading to the solarium eating area.

You will pay at least 3 times more per linear foot today if you choose a custom cabinet shop rather than Ikea, Home Depot or any other large "big-box" store, even when you choose one of their luxury cabinet lines.

However, you will never find a kitchen of this unique beauty, anywhere but here.

How to Get Wired

The house is 90 years old - not at all uncommon for a Toronto home.  The inhabitant has lived here for 25 years, never having had the money nor the fortitude to undergo a complete gut.  But now, since the kitchen is being renovated, gutted in fact, it's time to replace that old knob and tube wiring, bring it all up to code.  The owner was able to get insurance for her house when she bought, but bringing wiring up to code would now be a necessity.

But how to wire the remainder of the house which will not be gutted?  The wiring is being painstakingly run through the old lath and plaster walls and along the edge where the wall meets the ceiling.

Every room will have a new outlet on each wall.  Smoke detectors and CO detectors will be wired in, as code requires.  Minimal damage is being done to the walls so that plaster repair will be minor.

So how are these wires at the top of each wall to be disguised?  Enter crown moulding made of polyurethane, whose hollow back provides a channel for the wires to run.  Once the crown is installed, no wires will be seen, just a very attractive, architectural and decorative feature.

You may be wondering.  How will the main part of this small house be insulated?  The kitchen of course is being gutted and taken care of.  But, in future when or if natural gas prices rise again, this house may be be insulated from the outside.  It's detached, with an alley on one side, so no problem there.  But on the other long side, the house appears to abut the property line.  But wait one minute and consult your survey.  Chances are you will find you own up to 6" beyond your house wall, perfect for this purpose.

You see people, this is how to do it in the real world.  Over time, as a sensible budget allows.

So now, the most important information of all - who is performing this electrical magic?

It's Flash Gordon - 647.984.2520

Separate but Equal: Duplex Lower Level Kitchen

The partner and other owner of the duplex in High Park where I installed one of Ikea's first kitchens lived in a separate apartment on the lower level of this large house.  (The Ikea kitchen was located in the large second-floor apartment.)

This half-owner of the duplex wanted a custom-made kitchen, and not Ikea.  As I have said, in those days in the early 90's, the big-box stores had not yet taken over a large chunk of the kitchen reno business. Instead, small shops or carpenters did the work, and it was much more custom than any work that big-box stores can deliver today.

Here is a custom pantry, faced with melamine that uses a narrow space along one wall that would otherwise go to waste.

This owner loved the dark grey and white linoleum tiles I used in the upstairs kitchen, but he wanted something more muted, hence the light grey-blue and white tiles he chose.  He also wanted the walls to be pale peach in colour so therefore the blue of the floor tiles is a complementary pastel because it sits on the same side of the colour wheel.  In real life in Interior Design, I often or usually need to go with certain preferences that my client may have.

This photo above also shows the necessary work triangle (the fridge is off to the left, unseen).  The black trim on the lower cabinets provides definition and ties in with the dark controls on the dishwasher and the gas stove elements.

  Here is another view of this corner.  The uppers are plain white and blend softly into the pale peach wall colour.

Here is the window corner with the small fridge showing to the left.  The window has been left open and clear, but storage is taken care of by the large pantry on the opposite wall, already shown.  All surfaces are white melamine and beautifully washable with a quick swipe.

This is the way it was, folks!