My House Beautiful
City lot close to valley, LRT and work
Empty-nesters choose to start from scratch with Arts and Crafts style home.
As the nest empties, many folks choose to downsize from the family home.
Instead, Janet Ellsworth and Ted Roberts started from scratch, creating an elegant and romantic new nest, big enough to accommodate a return of the flock and lined with features that evoke country life in the city.
The duo work at University Hospital, and although Ted dreamed of rural life, after 18 years of driving to work from Aspen Gardens they couldn’t imagine spending more time behind the wheel. So they compromised and waited for the right lot. The one they chose had a bungalow they didn’t “feel too badly about tearing down,” and is located on a quiet street near Belgravia Park. There’s easy access to the river valley, and work is now a short walk or a one-stop ride away on the LRT.
The couple’s love of wood’s intrinsic beauty is introduced on their wide front porch, where sweet-smelling cedar lines the ceiling.
It provides a cool retreat in the summer and is one of four decks that give the large home a cabin-like feel.
The five-panel, Shaker-style front door has a purely decorative dentil shelf of wooden “rectangles,” and a window of herringbone-patterned lead glass.
Matching side panels in the chevron style reflect the elegance within.
The entrance is a nod to the past, with nine-foot walls painted russet-rose and a maple desk that belonged to Janet’s British grandfather. A print of poppies, by Canadian artist Brent Heighton, and inherited from Janet’s mother, hangs just above the desk.
Ted says the couple chose slate-like, ceramic floor tiling here because it is smoother and easier to maintain than real stone.
The simple powder room just around the corner is cast in the same romantic hue, and makes Janet “feel happy every time I go into it.”
Warm lighting is provided by classic, pendant-style, wrought-iron fixtures with candle-like rectangular globes.
Seven-inch fir baseboards line every room, complementing both the oak flooring and the couple’s furniture collection, including a large pine dining table with maple chairs.
The dining area links to one of the couple’s favourite spaces, a west-facing, three-season porch panelled in tongue-andgroove pine salvaged from the basement of the lot’s original bungalow.
Ted’s hobbies include woodworking, and he restored the surface’s grain by washing it with a “pickling” solution that they joke did not include a vinegar brine.
He demonstrates how the double-hung windows in the porch adjust to open either up or down, or pull out entirely to evoke an open, Cape Cod mood. The rustic-feel flooring is ceramic tile that resembles brick.
Since the couple had to sacrifice yard space for a detached garage, they agreed to making that garage as pretty as possible. Clad in cedar shingles and fibre cement siding by James Hardie that looks like wood, the gabled creation matches the house.
Numerous wooden french doors combined with large windows — including a set that open to both ventilate and extend the sun porch into the dining area — create a sense of airiness throughout the home. Builtin shelving at one end of the dark oak kitchen island provides a display space for the couple’s collection of pottery by Ardrossan’s Sam Uhlich.
Just off the kitchen, a large mud room, equipped with a sink for washing off dirty paws and footwear, is also plumbed to facilitate a main floor laundry one day.
The couple enlisted Effect Home Builders to install geothermal heating and the company’s signature, thickly insulated walls, with the dual benefits of energy efficiency and noise dampening.
A simple oak-and-white spindle staircase leads upstairs to a favourite spot for escaping, reading and dreaming. The large window seat just off the landing makes Janet think of the kinds of secret hiding places in her favourite reads, including Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre. She admits their dogs also enjoy the 180-degree view and the explosion of blossoms on the neighbour’s apple tree each spring.
The large master bedroom faces east and opens to a third deck for enjoying morning light.
The house is wired for sound throughout. With the flick of a switch, classical music floods the ensuite bathroom, where a large soaker-style tub, low pine bench, and glassed-in shower evoke the feel of a Scandinavian spa.
The second west-facing bedroom currently acts as the couple’s shared study and leads to another deck for enjoying sunsets.
Door handles throughout the home are all levered for easy opening, and the spacious main-floor guest room, which also acts as a den and guitar room, was created with aging-in-place in mind. Its ensuite bathroom features a walk-in glass shower.
At the room’s entrance, a large pine rocking cradle, which Ted built for their first-born, stands like another perfect nest, just waiting to be filled.