Project Name: Ravine View Home

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Date Completed: November 2017

Interior Designer: Douglas Design Studio

Construction Company: Tishler Homes

The Ravine View Home is a glamorous space featuring luxury materials and artisanal touches that create an artistic mix of modern with antique in a contemporary space suitable for both family gatherings and formal entertaining. Douglas Design Studio’s task was to integrate a selection of art and furnishings from the client’s late 20th century collection into a contemporary new home. The designers chose to refresh them by giving them a new sculptural importance and balancing them with soft modern touches. A natural palate of airy blues and greens with earthy caramels to reflect the natural colours of the ravine surrounding them is at once fresh, rich and warm making a comfortable relaxed environment for family and friends. Depth and drama were added to the home by using black accents throughout.

The renovation of this existing 5,000 square foot home within a luxury condominium building involved moving key rooms like the kitchen and powder rooms to new locations. The kitchen, treated as a hub, was moved to a more prominent place in the home to take advantage of the existing large floor to ceiling bow window (formerly the dining room). The new dining location was given equal importance across from the entry, with its own bow window. A rotunda was also added to create an elegant separation between public and private spaces. It’s interesting to note that Douglas Design Studio did not disturb the neighbours below with the plumbing changes, due to careful use of existing plumbing, venting and water-lines.

Passionate wine collectors, the clients’ first wish was to introduce a stunning state-of-the-art temperature and humidity-controlled wine room to the suite. Douglas Design Studio’s solution is an atmospheric combination of back-lit onyx and high-gloss black walls and racking suitable for a scene in any Bond film! This is a story about revivalism. Many of the pieces collected are from the late mid-century, and the design decisions works to display them to their best advantage in a kind of 80’s remix suitable for a 21st century home. The decision to create a mural in the rotunda was a response to the faux stone coffee tables in the family room.

Douglas Design Studio believe that the design works so well because there is a natural rhythm to the palette and material combination. This mixture is permitted to be rich and warm where needed or cool and fresh where preferred, all unified with a thread of black accent for drama. The luxurious elements are elegantly understated, so you feel as comfortable in slippers as you do in Givenchy.