I am thrilled to be designing the children’s spaces for the 2010 CityLine Dream Home!  The children’s bedroom, playroom, and washroom are all situated on the second floor and will be connected with a common theme and design style.  My imagined clients are 2 active young brothers – 4 and 6 years of age.  They will be sharing all 3 spaces.

Inspired by the modern, “green” architecture of the building pods themselves and the incredible large viewing windows, I am incorporating an outdoor theme.  Kids and adults alike have to spend far more time indoors than we might like with our Canadian climate, so we need to surround ourselves with natural elements, organic textures and earthy colours. Imagine living in a tree-house. The design and décor style for these spaces is graphic, streamlined with a contemporary feel balanced with true organic elements and colours.

Bedroom: The bedroom will be designed around the idea of “nighttime in the tree house.”  The colours will be cooler, deeper and the lighting dimmed. A paint treatment will be applied to the ceiling to give the effect of “sleeping under the stars.”  Each boy will have his own twin platform bed on opposite walls and each bed-space will be decorated uniquely with the common style to integrate.  There will also be comfy chairs/small sofa with a large ceiling mounted lighting fixture to create a cozy, “bed-time story” area for parents and kids in front of the window.  This area will be grounded with an area rug, the rest of the room exposed zebra stone cork flooring (carpet one.)The window treatments in this space will be opaque, contemporary roller blinds. (t.b.d) Armoires will be used for clothing storage, as well as under-bed storage solutions. PlayRoom: The kid’s activity space is based on the concept of “daytime in the tree-house.”  Here the colour palette is less saturated with lots of neutrals and pops of organic brights. Flooring in this space is a durable, easy to clean Armstrong product with a mix of colours.  The feature of this space is a raised play area designed like an open top tree-house.   This will be a modified Ikea loft bed designed to suit little ones with safety concerns addressed. Below the bed is ample room for a little hideaway with sleeping bags and toys on a “grassy” area rug.  In another quadrant of the room is the tv viewing area, with a flatscreen model that can be hidden with a barn-door style panel. (this may be made with lightweight, framed canvas.) For comfy viewing and colourful accents, bean bag chairs are essential!  An art nook with a custom made organic table and ample storage space for tools of the trade will fill another quadrant and provide creative space for the little artists.  The full corner of floor to ceiling windows provides a perfect space for lounging and dreaming – so hanging pod-like chairs will occupy this space as well as creatively hung family photos and kids artwork. Washroom:The washroom on the kids floor is extremely long and narrow.  To make the most practical use of this space it will be a multi-purpose washroom / laundry with small-space storage options that can also be used for kids crafts etc….  A free-standing linen closet will provide storage as well as act as a barrier to visually give privacy to the washroom space.  Flooring in the washroom will be a continuation of the cork flooring from the bedroom.

Ramsin Khachi - Dream Home Design Concept

The Kitchen - The inspiration for the Kitchen largely evolved from the glorious purity of Crystal which is a very hot trend this season. Another trend we are seeing more of is “The Farmhouse” – A little Rustic and very Raw. As with any good use of space, there needs to be an equal balance with choice of materials and how they are used. For example, we incorporated subtle crystal elements with natural woods, stone, high gloss finishes and varying other textures.  All of these elements were carefully chosen to create an overall feel of classic comfort in a contemporary environment.

The Family Room - The inspiration for this room was to create a space that was fresh and clean with comfortable and inviting textures. The fireplace wall is an important backdrop as it provides all of the features that one looks for in a family space; comfortable seating, a warm fire, storage and of course a free floating television. Amidst this “real” living setting the chosen ceiling light fixture creates a sense of whimsy and brings in an element of unique texture and scale.

The Powder Room - The inspiration for this room came from the “PuraVida” faucet from Hansgrohe.  I wanted to juxtapose the gracious clean cut lines of this modern faucet with the warm and inviting feel of a farmhouse.

The Mud Room - With clever storage solutions and useful utilities, this room helps to manage everyone in the household…..even the family pet. Functionality is the key to this room without losing site of the overall aesthetics of the house.

The Garage - The garage should be as well designed as any other room in the house. Innovative storage ideas, practical materials, a media source and great lighting are some of the important elements incorporated into this area. Click here to read more!