Design solutions for small homes

What do you do when you
love your home but are about
to outgrow it? Kate Halpenny and her husband,
Sean Smith, didn’t want to leave their
perfect downtown Toronto neighbourhood in
a red-hot real-estate market, so they called in
the pros to make their existing house work.

Enter architect Heather Dubbeldam, whose
firm is known for making small houses feel
bigger by bringing light in and maximizing
storage solutions. Since the home is attached
on one side, and local bylaws did not allow
for added windows on the other side, the only
solution to make it less dark and poky was to
rip out the central stairwell and replace it with
one that had open risers and a skylight at the
top. That brought light down through the
middle of the house. Heather then had partitions
built around the stairwell to keep a sense
of separate rooms (and for safety) without
sacrificing any of the light. The hard-wearing,
easy-to-clean acrylic wall was the perfect
solution for this young family.

Increasing storage was another priority.
By cleverly reimagining and building walls
around big-box pieces, the family got maximum
storage without the hefty price tag that
comes with custom built-ins. With Heather’s
careful interior design, every nook and cranny
was turned into a hideaway spot so that
the clean contemporary look the adults craved
is now in perfect harmony with the reality of
having a five-year-old and a seven-year-old.