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Readers of this column may have noticed that I rarely, if ever, write up do-it-yourself houses. That’s not because I have anything against amateurs who design, build and decorate their dwellings without thoroughgoing input from professional architects. My problem is that the results are commonly either banal or disagreeably idiosyncratic, and, in most cases, aren’t exciting enough to waste ink on.

The subject of this week’s column – a new, modern, three-storey house perched on a steep street in Toronto’s Beaches neighbourhood – is a (largely) DIY project that’s different.

All photos by Kevin Van Paassen For The Globe and Mail

Sabrina Bitton, its designer, outfitter and occupant, avoided spatial oddities and problems with city planners by basing her scheme on a very ordinary plan that a previous owner of the hilltop site had won official approval for.

But if the overall geometry of this wood-framed house is not unusual, Ms. Bitton’s formal nipping and tucking, and her thoughtful deployment of materials, have stamped the 2,100-square-foot residence with character all its own.

Certain ideas, she told me when I visited the house last week, animated her thinking about what she wanted to do. The key one was suggested by the building site itself, which is laid out on the floor of an oak forest older than Toronto.

The enormous trees, carefully protected by the city, reign over her lot and this entire stretch of the Beaches landscape, commanding respect. And respect is what Ms. Bitton has paid them, by making every window frame an excellent view of a massive trunk or branch, and by climaxing the upward climb through the house with a spacious third-floor deck nestled in the forest canopy. Too, the structure’s black wooden cladding, attractively accented by bright red metal window-casings, echoes the solemn darkness of the trees’ rugged bark.

Carrying this allusive woodland theme into the interior, Ms. Bitton has surfaced the house’s first-floor walls with walnut panelling. This decision is interesting, given that she collects figurative and abstract contemporary art and likes to have her paintings and drawings around her.

Many collectors are wedded to the texture-free, white or pale grey wall, mainly because, as far as I can make out, that’s the background against which modern artworks have traditionally been displayed in museums and photographed for books and magazines. But, as interior designers occasionally suggest, art can hold its own in other, livelier contexts. The dark walnut wall-coverings in this house certainly show off Ms. Bitton’s pictures to good advantage.

The general layout of the structure is unproblematic, conventional. The master bedroom suite, which opens onto the wonderful deck in the treetops, occupies the entire third level. There are two bedrooms on the second floor. Also conventionally, the living room, kitchen and a small music room (that could be used for dining), are on the entry level.

The appointment of the first floor is not, however, what one customarily expects to find in a three-bedroom Toronto house. Just inside the front door is the comfortable little music roomI mentioned, with its upright piano. In the middle of this level, and clearly its most important element, is the large marble kitchen island. Beyond the kitchen is the small living-room ensemble, at the rear of the space.

If you’re wondering where the dining room is, wonder no more: There isn’t one. A high counter with bar-stool seating for four, situated between the living room and the kitchen, is the closest thing here to a dinner table.

The entry level, then, is well suited for a busy family constantly on the go, for whom the sit-down meal is a thing of the past. It’s also set up conveniently for entertaining – cocktail parties, snack tastings and the like – where people are expected to mingle in the ample kitchen area and circulate freely in and beyond it.

The spatial arrangements and furnishings on the ground floor, and several other touches in the house, Ms. Bitton told me, have been inspired by the contemporary boutique hotel – chic, casual, uncluttered.

The built-in bed in the master suite, for example, stands in the middle of the room, as beds sometimes do, I understand, in such hotels. The prominent, sociable kitchen is meant to recall one in a hotel restaurant whose chef invites guests to see where the cooking is done.

The more memorable and well-utilized source of Ms. Bitton’s design, however, is surely the urban forest. Her deployment of wood, outside and inside, is smart. She has crafted a place in the city that responds in a spirited fashion to the elderly oaks that surround it and that, in their thousands, lend beauty and quiet dignity to the Beaches’ residential streets.