Toronto Renovation
Home renovation — Rathnelly, Toronto
This brick home on a narrow downtown lot responds to its Owner’s appetite for reading, gardening and entertaining by providing a variety of spaces.
The interior is laid out with the Kitchen overlooking the garden and opening onto it through a pair of very tall French doors. The Dining Room and Kitchen are combined into one room, demarcated by an island finished in an appetizing Italian marble. Formerly an enclosed vestibule, the front porch now wraps around the house and meets the garden wall, creating several perches for sitting, for firewood storage and for the Owner’s planters.
We and the Owner had many discussions about light, a precious commodity in the long Canadian winter. The dialogue culminated in the design of very broad and high double-hung windows to shed light deep within the house interior. As well, the main stair does double duty as a lightwell, rising to the 3rd floor beneath a very large skylight.