News — italian

TWO DESIGNING WOMEN TRANSFORM A SHOWHOUSE INTO A FORT MILL SHOWSTOPPER.  Who doesn’t love when a chance meeting leads to an amazing creative collaboration? In this case, it was a festive street party less than two years ago at the Southern Living Home Summit in New Orleans that brought together Cary, North Carolina–based designer Vicky Serany, founder and principal of Southern Studio Interior Design, and custom home builder Mary Ludemann of New Old. “We immediately connected and spent the evening discussing building and design as we followed a band marching through the French Quarter,” Serany recalls with a smile. Fast...

WHEN ELTE’S KEN AND RENEE METRICK FINALLY DECIDED TO EMBRACE COTTAGE LIVING, THEY BUILT A CONTEMPORARY RETREAT THAT’S AS PERSONAL AND POLISHED AS THEIR ICONIC STORES. IF IT'S RARE TO FIND a family that can work together, it’s rarer stillto find one that, atthe end of a long workweek, can’t waitto getto the cottage to spend more time together. Ken and Renee Metrick and their sons, Andrew and Jamie, are the third and fourth generation of Metricks overseeing Elte,the wildly successful Toronto-based home decorating juggernautfounded by Ken’s grandfather 100 years ago in 1919.Almost a century later, in 2015, the family...

The condo they bought in the heart of Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood overlooks the jutting, crystal-like exterior of the Royal Ontario Museum. “They were excited about being less traditional and more contemporary in an urban environment,” says Colette. With this fresh start, the owners were eager to see the treasures they had accumulated over a lifetime in a completely new light. Colette, who honed her everything-old-is-new-again approach in the U.K. when she was creative director for legendary designer Nicky Haslam, began by visiting her clients’ Montreal house prior to the move. She relished walking through the rooms one by one, reviewing...

here was a time in my life when all I desired was an entirely white home — white floors, white walls, white furniture, even books sheathed in sleeves of white paper. It was an aesthetic I’d seen successfully carried out in magazines by artistic homeowners often living in New York City lofts with soaring factory windows. When we bought our first house in Toronto, we decided to live in the space for a few months before taking on a major renovation. The walls were a deep burgundy and the floors were a dark-stained, cheap parquet. Prior to moving in, I...

Kim Dawson worked tirelessly to turn a garish property into a serene home, ideal for a Scandi-style Christmas. When Kim Dawson first viewed a handsome Edwardian house in her dream location, she was unfazed by the multicoloured, dated interior, realising that with vision and determination, it could be totally transformed – just in time for Christmas. ‘I’m sure many people would have been put off by the riot of colour that confronted me when I walked in,’ says Kim. ‘The house was completely over the top, decorated in all colours of the rainbow dominated by yellows, reds and purples.’ Despite this...