Learn Language through the song - | English exercises

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Over time, we found that, you know,

just having a very white space didn't feel interesting enough.

We started putting tons of artwork all over the walls,

but then that started to feel kind of cluttered.

And so we put down these white

oak floors, and then that kind of kicked off

a second round of renovations.

And that's when we did all of the major kind of millwork interventions.

We tried really hard

to keep it as clean and simple as possible.

Utilizing the ceiling height,

light wood, minimal decor, and pops of colour

so that the space doesn't feel too full.

It's about 450ft² and maximized

to make the most use of the space as possible.

A lot of the no work solutions

just come from us living in the space and running out of space,

and then thinking of a way to utilize that extra six inches,

but do it in a way that feels cohesive and feels beautiful,

building things in and being very intentional about what goes in.

That was the key to it.

My name is Ryan.

I live in the West End of Toronto.

I live here with my partner Agata and my dog Kira,

and we've lived here for 13 years.

Agata and I collaborate on the space in a way where,

because she's a creative director, she's very good with styling,

picking out some of the different furniture

pieces and the art so that it feels cohesive.

I’m a millwork designer and fabricator.

I have a millwork fabrication and design studio.

What I do mostly is cabinets.

I do some furniture, and I also really like

making doors and other architectural millwork elements.

I don't do a lot of specifically space saving design,

but that's something that I really enjoy

because it's always a fun challenge to solve those problems.

This is the living room.

This is where we spend a lot of our time, and it's functioning

both as a living space, but also part-time

working space.

This is a pretty decent sized

living room for a condo but we didn't want it to feel cramped.

So we are doing certain things in here to make sure

that the floor space feels as large as possible.

And we're achieving that by using a cabinet like this.

This cabinet was definitely an investment piece.

It's a Vitsœ 606 system designed by Dieter Rams.

It might be where you would typically put your TV,

and we just choose

not to have a TV in the space because we feel like it's just too,

it's just like a big

black rectangle and an otherwise beautiful space.

So, you know, we just watched shows on our laptop

and instead of having a TV in here, we have this big painting.

A big influence around the colour palette.

And some of the things that Agata picked for the house came from

this kind of sunset painting that she created.

And we really like the way that felt in the space.

So that's where we started

bringing in more pops of pink and yellow and green.

What's cool about it is it changes depending on the light.

You know, when the sun hits it in the morning

versus maybe in the afternoon or on a gloomier day.

It kind of, it changes.

We always use this little corner

here for a desk to work at.

The idea when we did some of this new millwork design was that

it was just for working home once a week.

For the desk to fold down,

it's just a simple as two really small clips.

They just pop in and then the desk folds down,

and it allowed us to fold

the desk away so you don't have to see your office space

and just utilize that extra area when you're not using it.

It's a nice, very bright area.

Plants in the window.

This desk

kind of informed that the millwork would come out a certain distance,

and that created a bit of extra space here.

And keeping with the idea of using an extra six inches

where you have it, we use these little tip-out drawers.

The hardware is for a sponge drawer, actually,

for the apron in front of your kitchen sink,

but we utilize it here to create

just these little cubbies that allow us to store, you know,

your glasses, your pencil case, just things that you need around

your desk.

So a big part of

the millwork we did in the condo was trimming out

the windows in a way where we could add some functionality.

We wanted as much light as possible at all times.

So to achieve that, I hid the blinds up in this bulkhead,

and they're motorized.

So when they go up during the day, they're all the way up.

They're not covering the windows whatsoever.

And in finishing the trim

around this window, we kind of ended up with a spot

just for a little windowsill just to display more plants.

And then also these shoe racks.

We tend to use this entrance

from the street more than we use the hallway entrance.

And especially in the summertime, it just becomes a bit chaotic

with all the shoes that start to pile up.

So it's great.

We have space for 12 pairs of shoes here, and it's been really great

in keeping the space tidy.

The room doesn't have a whole

lot in it, but the stuff that's here is doing the work.

So this lamp brought in a splash of colour - talks to the,

the pink painting, yellow pillows, you know, a couple of,

end tables, which also function as stools for the kitchen.

So another couple of

furniture pieces that we had to invest in for the space was

this occasional chair for the office area.

We always really liked Knoll furniture.

So we bought this Marcel Breuer Cesca chair and then sort of

the matching design is the Laccio coffee table

and we picked them just because they feel really light and airy.

When he did the design

using the bent tubing, he was actually inspired by how

they would use, metal tubing for making bicycles.

So it's a very old design, but it still feels very modern

and it works really well in the space.

This bent piece of acrylic

was just something that Agata found at Home Sense

and thought, “this is perfect.”

It's going to bring another splash of colour.

And then,

I made these coasters when I was working in an acrylic fabrication

shop and I think I just grabbed some scrap material off the rack.

You know, they made it.

They somehow got taken out of a box a couple of years ago,

and they just happened to, like, fit the colour scheme perfectly.

Found this sofa and chair,

on Kijiji many years ago, and I bought it from someone up north.

They brought it down.

And when it got here, I noticed that it was just this

terrible brown colour.

The sofa cushions were like the consistency of, like,

a Crunchy bar inside and they were just crumbling into nothing.

So it was a huge project for us,

just stripping it all down, revealing the ash wood

underneath the brown stain and then getting the cushions

reupholstered and picking the fabric.

And then the two of us did it together.

So that's kind of like a fun memory for us.

And it's just like a piece that it's perfect for the space.

So this is the kitchen.

And this is sort of

the final evolution of a couple of different stabs

we took at getting something that worked well for us.

Initially, the kitchen didn't have any drawers.

It was just there was just one

kind of bank of drawers here, and the rest was just,

a couple of cabinets, a big pantry here.

So when we redesigned the kitchen,

we put a couple of banks of drawers

on either side just to make storage easy.

Big bank of drawers here for pots and pans and other things.

Not a lot of space for cutlery and kitchen tools.

So we started hanging them on the wall.

This was a piece of Ikea kitchen hardware.

This is where we keep, you know, plates,

cups and, you know, the oils and other, like, cooking spices

and things that we use day to day when we're cooking.

The cabinet that is above the fridge is kind of notorious

for being just a dumping zone

where you can't really access anything because it's

difficult to grab things,

but we kind of solved it by putting a drawer in it.

So now there's actually a drawer that opens up here.

Also creates a vent for the fridge

so that the heat from the fridge can escape.

So the original design of this kitchen had a

like raised bar section in front of the main part of the countertop

that was meant to to sit at stools and eat at.

We wanted to preserve that idea so that we wouldn't have to have

a kitchen table in the space.

But after many years of kind of sitting at the bar stools,

if you have guests over, you're sort of three people in a row.

You can't really interact.

We started to feel the need

for a kitchen table, and we were inspired to create

two sections of drop-leaf tables on the front of the kitchen here.

Agata and I could sit and have a meal together

and actually, like interact and look at each other.

We could have up to six people if we wanted, but if we just

if it's just the two of us or three of us, even,

we can flip up one of the sections and use that.

Handmade solution specifically for this space

and made it so that it disappears into the kitchen

when it's not used.

We created a bench where you could sit and put your shoes on.

Underneath the bench, there's a bin that you can take out,

that has all of the recycling in it, and it's just hidden away.

The Eames Hang-It-All holds

you know, 20 jackets and 20 tote bags.

And when it's full of stuff in the wintertime, you can't see it.

But it does a great job of kind of keeping everything off the floor,

you know, and maybe out of the closet.

Another way we try to utilize

extra space in the entryway was that same idea

of using the leftover six inches that's not being used.

So we have this little cabinet and this is sort of our

just entry way cabinet.

It's to accept everything that comes in the house

that usually would get put on the countertop when you arrive home.

So we have this little alcove

that shares the laundry, the bathroom, and the hall closet.

This is a problem in a lot of condos

where you have these sliding glass panels.

You can only access half the closet at once.

So we thought, okay, instead of that, we will do two tall doors.

Actually, we like the aesthetic of it

because it makes it feel like it's own little space.

The idea of having just this tall, skinny door

was that

it was a statement in the room and we wanted to do it in black wood

because Agata really like the aesthetic of

what’s known as like, factory doors, which is usually like a black metal

and glass door with the mullion detail.

But I'm not a metal worker. I'm a woodworker.

So I said, sure, I'll make you a black wood door.

So we removed the framing above and we installed this,

created the mullion, and they're actually just attached

to the glass with double sided tape to kind of create the aesthetic

that she wanted. It's really great.

It lets the light pass between the two rooms.

This is our bedroom

and the inspiration, and I guess the design of the room

is all about

creating a lot of storage space while hiding the fact

that there's a lot of storage space.

So this millwork piece around

the window was created to solve a couple of different problems.

The first issue was we wanted to create a nice deep windowsill

for the collection of orchids that we have here.

We really just like having plants in the house.

So it created some space for storage beneath it

and at each side,

and just framing out the window in a really nice way.

Either side, we created these panels that slide, and they're inspired

by shoji screens that you see in old Japanese architecture.

Finished off with the rice paper inside, and it's really nice

when it catches the light behind it, it illuminates it but it hides

the contents of the the cabinet, which is great.

This artwork is something that Agata created and actually,

she just shot it with her iPhone, just with the panorama function.

And it was just a moment.

We were in Miami looking for manatees,

kind of out at Key Biscayne.

It's just like a nice big piece for our bedroom wall.

This section of the room is

just all additional storage space that we originally went to Ikea.

We bought a bunch of cabinets.

We just chose to make it look more

built in by filling in this section with another bookcase.

And then we changed the doors on the cabinets here,

full length, matte-white, kind of blends in.

Makes you feel like it's just the wall

and they're just untouched.

So, like, this is kind of like where we might store some linens

and things like that.

This is just where our closet is.

And we have this big, beautiful sliding door

kind of closes everything off, louvered,

not exactly the same

as the other doors, but kind of picking up on

some of the same design language as the other slatted doors.

When we first moved in here,

this closet had a regular door in it

but the door opened inwards and it was really awkward

to access, like actually what was inside the closet.

So you'd have to go in the closet and close the door behind you.

So the sliding door just solved that problem for us.

When I walk into my home at the end of the day,

I just want a feeling of comfort and calm.

I want to leave the chaos of the day behind

and just enjoy my space and the cleanliness

and the minimalism.

I'm like a builder and Agata is more of an artist.

So she sees the world in a different way.

I might be seeing the world in a way where

I'm trying to create storage solutions and woodworking

and functionality, where she's trying to see things

and, you know, how do I make it beautiful?

Or how do I add beauty to, like, maybe what I have

some of the things I've created.

I think we both have a great sense of pride in the space and the work

that we've put into it, and being successful

in living here and managing living in a small space for a long time,

you know, it gives us a sense of pride,

but also gratitude for like what we've been able to achieve.

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