Designer Karen Sealy.
Like many designers, I started my business from my home. As my business grew and I started to hire more people, it quickly became apparent that we needed new digs.
I started looking for a property that would provide studio space and a sample room for my team, as well as a showroom in which we could meet with our clients and show them some of our favourite products. Ideally, I wanted to find something fairly close to home, in or near the Beach area of Toronto where I and most of my employees live.
The search for the kind of space I had in mind was much tougher than I thought it would be, and I looked at many different types of properties. I saw ugly rentals in strip malls, with drop ceilings and harsh fluorescent lighting; retail spaces with jacked-up taxes and high rents; and even a rich man's folly from the 1920's, built to mimic some sort of medieval castle.
Seeing the potential
One advantage to being a designer is the ability to look beyond the obvious and see the potential. I saw just that when I found a property with two cinderblock buildings – a residence out front and a dilapidated three-car garage at the back.
I envisioned the garage as a fabulous “maritime modern” studio space, and the other building as the boardroom/showroom that would also give us room to grow. This property offered great flexibility, with two structures that could be adapted to meet our current and future needs.
I made an offer and a few weeks later it was time to get to work.
The garage before reno.
Getting started
The first step in a renovation is always the floor plan. The immediate priority was to turn the garage into a studio, so before any hammers were swung I made sure my drawings were finished and a solid plan was in place. The footprint for the studio wasn't huge, and separate offices were not an option. The old, wood-slatted vaulted ceiling of the garage was a feature that I decided to enhance by removing the central loft to expose it. Keeping the space open concept would play up the airy character of the ceiling, and allow my team to interact and communicate freely. Sometimes to preserve character in a building, you have to approach things differently. So instead of insulating the ceiling on the inside of the space, we added rigid insulation on the outside of the roof, adding an additional roof on top of the insulation, and covering it with architectural shingles.
I had a dormer built over the front door of the studio, to add some presence and shield the stoop from wet weather. Reclaimed Douglas fir beams cantilever from the interior to the exterior to support the new dormer, and add warmth and character to both. Factory finished wood siding with faux-stone beneath it covers the concrete block and adds considerable charm and a maintenance-free exterior.
Heat and water
In an open concept, fitting in the mechanical systems in a way that doesn't compromise the design can be a challenge. We poured concrete floors throughout the space, using an in-floor heating system supplied by a gas hot-water-on-demand unit. The polished concrete is a durable and stylish option for an office, and even on the coldest winter day we can go shoeless and our feet remain toasty warm.
This ductless system could have meant no air conditioning, which would have been very uncomfortable in Toronto's humid summers. To rectify this, I added a filtered ventilation system to clean and circulate the air, and cool us down quickly in the summer. I hid the system in an unusable space above the washroom and suspended the large spiral duct over part of the vaulted ceiling, adding an industrial edge to the coastal vibe.
Turning no into yes
