Kim's personal links
MY FAVOURITE DECOR SHOPS IN OTTAWA
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kitchen remodel in my last house
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my twin sister's mostly kid's rooms decor blog
It's been ages since Jo blogged about Vancouver interior designer Kelly Deck. I stumbled across some of her work recently in a magazine and was pleased to find many fabulous spaces on her website crying out for an updated post. I always thought of her as the queen of exteriors but it appears she certainly knows what she's doing on the inside as well. Her kitchens and bathrooms are what dreams are modern and totally dreamy.
This is the last day of a 4 day weekend for me - essentially the only span of time off from my day job I am taking this summer. (I thought I should save my vacation days for the house renos which gawd knows when or if they will start anytime soon). Friday my husband Jeff and I stopped off at a couple of my favourite local home furnishing shops to get an idea of what we might want to purchase when the house is complete. One of those shops was Green Light District Design, which I have blogged about here and here. Jeff and I had dinner with the owners, Deborah and David, a couple of weeks ago and found out some very sad news. They are packing up the shop and moving it to Toronto. I am happy that Deborah and David are taking their shop to greener pastures but I am really disappointed that the shop didn't work here in Ottawa. So before they left Jeff and I decided to pick out some things that we've had our eyes on for ages, and we are planning to pick them up in Toronto and check out the new shop when the order comes in. In the meantime I picked up some more of the gorgeous dishes (handmade in South Africa) that I have been slowly acquiring since my first visit to GLDD, and of course took some photos. But before I share those, here are some details of the new shop: The name will now be 'Green Light District'....The new address is 365 Roncesvalles Ave in a totally renovated shop in Toronto's west end, near High Park....The website address remains the same....The neighbourhood of Roncy has had a complete street renewal over past 2 years which is now complete....We are keeping most of our current suppliers, but adding exciting new pieces....The last day in Ottawa will be Sept 11; opening in TO late September.
Here are the dishes Icould not pass up purchasing before the store closes. I snagged a couple more soup bowls, side plates, pasta bowls, finally some dinner plates (love the unfinished edge!), and a really pretty accent bowl. I adore how they are SO handmade that each piece is really a different shape, and when stacked they sit unevenly. PRETTY!!!
Swanwick Ranch is considered one of the finest luxury oceanfront estates in Canada; a residence that has been featured in professional architectural and design publications around the globe. It is a masterpiece of contemporary architecture that has received national architecture acclaim for design. Custom designed for it’s current owners, the residence is a perfect retreat for families seeking a refuge from the pulse of modern life. It is situated on a majestic 68-acre gently sloping oceanfront property in the rural community of Metchosin, British Columbia with over 1,400 feet of low-bank oceanfront.
One of the social aspects of the design of the home is the ability to interact between spaces quite readily, such that even though the home is very large there are opportunities via balconies and bridges and interconnected spaces to have moments of conversation or eye contact across very large distances, which bring occupants the feeling of being close together even though each may be in their own retreat space.
AH MAH GAWD
Kim Jeffery is a very talented and relatively new photographer (I aspire) who has a very interesting name (mine is Kim, my husband's is Jeffrey), has photographed for covet garden (one of my favourite online mags), is Canadian I think (me too!), is a huge animal lover and wanted to be a vet until she was 14 (me too!), and has a few cats (me too!). Seems like destiny that I blog about her and her pretty photos.
I was SO EXCITED the other day when I received an email from Gillian, a local Ottawan who at one time had grand plans to turn a boring 1945 2 bedroom Ottawa bungalow into something modern and spectacular. Sounds kind of familiar. :-) Luckily for Gillian her plans were put into action and completed in November of last year - and the results are FABULOUS!! (and I'm totally going to hit her up for advice throughout my renos). Here's the scoop from Gillian:
The objective was clear: build an edgy, modern, sustainable home. The wish list included: 3 bedrooms; an open concept, chef’s style eat-in kitchen for entertaining and doing heaps of cooking; an ‘urban great room’ across the back of the house to let the sun shine in and provide main floor family space; a custom, “wow” open staircase (non of that pre-fab stuff!); a mudroom; a dog bath; and an exterior that pushes the envelope. And so ensued the design process and renovation by Moneca Kaiser Design Build.
The idea was to be able to stay put, and not be forced to move in future, ‘cause that’s a whole lot of waste.To do this, for example, we put the master bedroom with ensuite on the main floor, which also features an accessible bathroom, at the side entry, that presently does double duty as a dog shower! The 2nd floor loft style family room on the ‘kids’ level’ can also easily be converted into a master bedroom (for now it’s our family room/ gym).
Using sustainable products, like bamboo flooring and parallam beams for the staircase (and it is “wow”), as well as choosing greener options, such as spray foam insulation and a condensing hot water tank (among maaaany others), we aimed to take a practical approach to sustainability.
This forward thinking was carried right through to the decorating, where we opted to make the investment in well-designed pieces with nice clean lines that are totally timeless. With the exception of our One Stools by Magis, we chose an all-Canadian roster of designers, with the help of two amazing Ottawa-based home stores, Alteriors and Blueprint Home. Proudly, our furnishings are among the coolest designs by IZM Furniture, Gus Modern, LucyAu and William—all Canadian. The work of Louis Helbig, an abstract aerial photographer and fellow Ottawan, ups the edge factor, and its organic, context-free composition pulls the interior together in an uncanny way. (Sources mentioned above are listed at the end of this post!)
Below is a before photo of the exterior (bleh), a couple after photos (WOW!), and one peek at the interior (YES!). The rest of the photos are after the jump. (Photos via Gordon King)
Wed, 24 Aug 2011