Great Spaces

In this colourful Playter Estates home, every day is happy hour

A Playter Estates property turned rainbow-coloured fun house

Andrew and Kelly met in New York City in 2014 and fell hard and fast. He was working at Google at the time, and she was doing her PhD in comparative literature. Ten days later, Andrew proposed, and their wedding was as colourful as they are. Bridesmaids were basically given carte blanche, with more than 50 dresses to choose from, and kids were encouraged to dress as superheroes and princesses. One cousin arrived with his face painted like Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

Within a couple of years, they had one baby at home and another on the way, and decided to move to Toronto, Andrew’s hometown. They found a house in Playter Estates for $1.7 million. It had dark-stained wood and stuffy carpets, but they knew they could mould it to fit their whimsical sensibilities.

By 2018, Kelly was pregnant with their third child, and they brought in Heather Asquith of Asquith Architecture and Julie Reinhart, an interior designer, for a proper full-scale gut job. They extended the second storey at the back of the house and added loads of storage to help organize the family of five. The millworker who crafted their multicoloured cabinetry thought they were crazy at first, but eventually came around. Now, the kitchen is the focal point, with light pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows. While living with so much colour might seem chaotic to some, Andrew says they never considered what other people might think. “We didn’t do this to sell the house. We did this to enjoy it. We want our kids to be surrounded by life and colour and fun.”

Kelly Swartz, a sex coach, and her husband, Andrew, a communications professional, moved to Toronto in 2016 to raise their kids, Solal, Annabella and Danielle (not pictured)

4 4 Chair pods for each child hang in the basement playroom, which was excavated to increase the ceiling height from six and a half feet to over eight feet.

3 In Kelly’s office, the butterfly garden wallpaper from Osborne and Little makes a snazzy Zoom backdrop. 3

2 The kids love making forts out of the Nugget modular sofa in Solal’s room. The family gather on it every night to read bedtime stories. 2

1 1 Reinhart designed the dining table with a quartz top. The curved bench tucks underneath so the kids have room to run indoors.