FAMILY FIRST
Couple answers readers’ questions about kids’ furniture, kitchen tiles, bathroom remodelling and building a home, inside and out
Ally and Michael Banks designed and built a three-storey, sixbedroom home for their family of six. They each brought their own talents to the project: Ally owns Ally Banks Interiors and Michael is president of custom-home builder Banks Development Co. The couple joined forces with architect Ankie Barnes of Barnes Vanze to take the familiar brick Colonial style to the next level.
Ally and Michael Banks discuss not only the challenges but also the joys of designing your own house.
Q What advice do you have for designing a home with a growing family? Do you ever let your kids pick out stuff for their bedrooms?
Ally Banks: For kids’ rooms, I would keep the bones of the room something that you can live with at different ages and stages. Buying furniture pieces that can grow with your child is key. Bedding, rugs and lamps are things that you can easily change out as your child reaches a new stage and wants a new look. As for personalization, I like letting the kids choose the colour scheme. It’s fun to let them weigh in on wall colour and fabrics.
Q I’m going to remodel the bathrooms in my 1950s house. Are there any trends in fixtures, lighting and vanities that I should consider?
Ally Banks: I buy many of my bath lighting fixtures from Circa Lighting. They are great quality and have a steady stream of new designs. For bath fixtures, I tend to go with a more modern style. I think that design is moving from more traditional to more contemporary, so a more clean-lined fixture will look updated and fresh. Polished nickel is always a classic. Brass is very on trend right now. You can’t go wrong with either. For vanities, we tend to custom-design them and use our great carpenters to build exactly what we like.
Q I’m looking at a house where the current owners seemed to like screwing things into tile. I’d like to take a lot of the stuff out, but I’m afraid that doing so will leave holes in the tile. Is there any way to fix this without making it look rough? Michael Banks: No, you’ll need to rip out and start fresh. Sorry!
Q I like the look of subway tile and am considering it for a kitchen backsplash, but my whole main floor will be painted a very light beige, and I do not want grey grout. Black or darkgrey grout will clash with the rest of the colour scheme, but white seems to make the tile almost invisible. Any advice?
Michael Banks: I would typically say choose an off-white, almost grey, sanded grout for white ceramic subway tile. It gives the subway tile some style and definition. Second to grey grout (which doesn’t work for your kitchen), I’d play it safe with a white grout. This will be a clean, cohesive backdrop to your kitchen. Make sure your kitchen cabinet paint colour works with the white tile. Often the stark white colour of the ceramic subway tile will make an off-white cabinet colour look dirty, dated and old. The whites need to be close in colour and in brightness. You do not want your cabinets appearing yellow.
Ally Banks: I agree with Michael. The tile does not need to be the focal point of the room. Let it be the backdrop and choose another place to make your big statement.
Q What advice would you give a couple thinking of building their own home without any developer or design background? It would be great to get what I want by designing/ building my own home, but I’m afraid it will be too much of a challenge with little experience.
Michael Banks: You want to hire someone with experience. Even better, hire someone you can get along with and trust. Having a similar design esthetic to your architect, designer, builder is also helpful.