Decorating Home Remedy Minimalism meets eclecticism in this Vancouver condo.

A VANCOUVER CONDO BECOMES A REFUGE FOR A FRONTLINE DOCTOR.

DDR. PAULA MEYLER is no stranger to gruelling 24-hour shifts. When she’s finally home, the Vancouver anesthesiologist goes straight to her cosy bedroom, crawls into bed, draws up the indigo sheets and looks at her travel photos on the wall. “You can get very focused in medicine and forget that there’s a whole world out there,” says Paula, who lives in a 1,600-square-foot condo in Gastown. “I’m so thankful to have invested in myself and my home; it’s a place where I can relax and unwind after the chaos of the hospital. You can’t put a price on that.” After renting the condo for three years, Paula bought it from her landlord — she loved its wraparound gardens and terraces, especially the private

courtyard with fountains, trees and zen vegetation out front. She asked her friend Ben Leavitt of Vancouver design studio PlaidFox to make the interior feel equally tranquil. “Paula, like so many, had filled her home with things to live with, rather than things to love,” says Ben, who oversaw the complete renovation of the condo in 2019. “Since the reno, she refuses to look at the before images and jokingly admits the home was previously a treasure trove of what not to do in design!”

A former ballet dancer, Paula loves dance, travel and photography, and her home needed to match her intrepid personality. “She wanted it to be bright and calming — very minimal with not a lot of colour,” says Ben. “But because she spends her whole day in a hospital, I didn’t want it