34 more photos
Details
Credits
From ANTHONY PROVENZANO ARCHITECTS
The Clients
One might say: Prototypical Empty Nesters; both are lawyers with 21 year old triplets away at University who were downsizing from a ravine house with a backyard pool in mid town Toronto to a downtown 4 bedroom suite at the Thompson Hotel Condominium . The children, who are all away during the school year at University, still need to be housed for the foreseeable future and there are two dogs.
The Site
The clients sold their house and bought a 2100 sq ft, 3 Bedroom Suite and the adjacent 720 sq ft, 1 Bedroom Suite. The plan was to give the 3 Bedroom suite to the kids and create a master suite ‘oasis’ for the parents with an internal connection.
The Project
We needed to first strategically place an internal connection between the units and then developed a scheme for the projects totality, the project was split into two phases: Phase 1 was to totally renovate the 3 Bedroom Suite to be consistent with Phase 2. And Phase 2 was the complete transformation of a 1 Bedroom Suite into the Master Suite, worthy of a 2800 sq ft, 4 Bedroom Condominium.
The Design Solution(s)
The suite not only had east and west facing bedrooms, but it also boasts a full south exposure. One of the children’s bedrooms occupies the South West Corner (which is adjacent to the Dining Area) and because that bedroom would be empty 80% of the year, we proposed a Transforming Bedroom in the South West corner; with a Murphy Bed and a retractable Wood Wall. So that when the kids were at school, the clients could open up the space enjoy the sunset from their dinner table.
For the most part, this project relies on Millwork pieces to define spaces. In Phase 1, apart from the custom designed retractable wood wall, a credenza niche extends into the space and a massive ‘TV Unit’ are inserted into the space.
In Phase 2, the issues we confronted surrounded, how does one make a proper Master Suite Oasis out of a 1 BR Condo Unit? We added a double vanity on an existing Plumbing Wall, turned the kitchen into a Walk-In Shower, decommissioned the Washer/Dryer, defined a Kind Size bedroom space and then treated all other area as an opportunity for custom designed storage, from which one withdrew corridor space.
In other words, rather than place storage off of a corridor, we made everything Millwork storage and subtracted a corridor from it. Resultantly, every square millimeter of Millwork storage was custom designed and fitted to the space.
All of the Millwork was book matched and sequenced Walnut, from the same log. All of the exposed hardware pulls were custom designed and fabricated locally from brushed brass. All of the stone was book matched and sequenced from the same block of stone. All of the walls were treated with a new natural San Marco Venetian Plaster and all of the flooring is Statuario white marble.