Ottawa Magazine

The Interiors Edition of Ottawa Magazine shows off projects from pretty much everyone involved in our house project. RND Construction built one of the houses profiled, John Donkin designed one of the other houses (which is gorgeous, please check it out) and Serina Fraser did the re-design of an advertising office that is featured. It was a great read. Oh, and the kind of freaky house full of dead, stuffed animals is right around the corner from where we're living now. Yikes.

J.

Wallpaper Wars

The interior design continues! I am really blown away by how hard the architects and designers are working to get this done, confirmed, priced, and eventually executed.

Up there you see my photo of the computer view of our powder room from our laundry room. This is one of the two rooms in the house where there will be wallpaper. My husband hates wallpaper. I love wallpaper. The compromise is having some wallpaper in rooms where he is not likely to spend a lot of time. It will work out well, I think.



We had a three hour meeting at the architect's office this week, where Sarah (architect/designer) walked me through the house's interior while Serina (designer) displayed the samples of the materials that will be used. It is a great way to get a sense of how the space will actually look.



My sewing room is the other room in the house that will have wallpaper. This room is, obviously, very exciting for me. I had a sewing space in our old house, but it was also the guest room and had only a sub floor, no actual floor. Plus the floor was sloped, so my large shelf of supplies often lurched back and forth precariously. This new sewing room will have shelves that are not lurchy, a closet for more storage, my existing (sentimental value) wooden work table, and the cool adjustable light you see in the photo above. It will also have wallpaper patterned with birch trees, which I am super in love with. Oh! And towel bars on one wall that I can hang quilts over for display or for storage while I'll working on them. That was my idea. I'm proud of it.



Having the sewing room be well designed and efficient plays into my idea of this house as an urban homestead. I know it sounds a little nuts, but I love the idea of taking traditional activities (growing food, making clothes, keeping bees) and making a modern, comfortable, beautiful space to practice them in.

J.

Colours and Textures

We had a meeting with the architects/designers this week to go over the interior design for the house. It went freakishly well. I say freakish because for weeks Serena, who is handling the interior design stuff, had been alluding to the plan she had for the tall wall space by our staircase. I had been secretly hoping, for no reason other than I kind of liked the look of it in pictures, that she'd want to put reclaimed wood all up the surface of the wall. And guess what? She wants to put reclaimed wood up the surface of the wall. And, it turns out, everyone agreed that carrying this kind of wall covering into the living room is a great idea. Sold.



Serena also demonstrated her in-tune-ness by printing out selections of the photos I'd posted on Pinterest (choosing a bunch of my favourite shots without knowing it) and grouping them into design elements that kept showing up again and again. She used those textures, colours, and arrangements to pull together ideas for the tiles and flooring and millwork for our house.



It's crazy-exciting to see more detailed rooms pop up on the computer screen.



J.

A Lighting Plan

Every week we have a meeting in the architect's office which is located in his newly renovated attic and has big gorgeous windows looking out over the Glebe. Lately, these meetings have centred on the "lighting plan" for our house. Did you know there were plans for lighting? Most of my previous residences had lighting plans such as, "Don't Turn That Overhead Light On In The Bedroom Because The Wiring Is Bad And It Will Probably Kill Us" or "I Think I'll Put That Old Light My Grannie Gave Me In Thw Corner By The Couch Because That's Where The Only Plug In The Room Is."

But now we have pages of lighting plans. They look like this:



The main push and pull between us and the architect so far has been around his love of open, multi-use space and our love of more closed, single use space. As in, this is the living room where we will read books and listen to records and this is the bedroom where we will mostly just sleep. We had a major break through when the architecture team realized that the lighting was going to mostly be task-specific, rather than adaptable to many different uses of one space. It's been cool to work with people who will challenge our perceptions of what we want and at the same time listen to us and figure out what will work for our lives, even if it isn't what they normally do.

Here's John demonstrating the lights in his office and giving us all a collective heart attack by standing on a chair at the top of a staircase.



J.

Reality Vs. Imagination

Right now the site of our new house looks like this:



There's a hole in the ground and a porta-potty and some machines and a fence. Not the kind of thing that excites me. But then the architects send us pictures like this:



Yes, it looks like a mock-up of what it would look like if we became jello farmers, but really it was to help us choose a colour for the window frames.

It is amazing to see these pictures with added detail, even if the detail looks like giant cubes of a wiggley, low cal dessert.








J.