Toronto Bedroom Redesign Workshop

Posted on: October 2nd, 2010 | 5 Comments

For those of you who were unable to join us this morning, click on the player below to watch John and Matthew’s Design Workshop on BradW’s master bedroom.

Thanks to everyone who submitted a floorplan and tuned in. Make sure to join us next Tuesday, October 2nd at 5pm Pacific/6pm Mountain/8pm Eastern, as John and Matthew present a Housebrand renovation of a 1960s’ split-level home in Calgary.

  • Karli

    Awesome presentation, I really liked the idea of the bed and closet together in the middle of the room. You talked about what to put on that large empty wall. Here’s an idea – it’s from a studio in Edmonton, but probably any professional portrait studio could imitate this.
    http://showandtellphotos.com/email/WallGrouping.jpg
    Would be really nice with family photos.

  • Brad W

    What about leaving the bedroom as is? Isn’t that the slowest approach?

    There is a great family bath just down the hall so isn’t having just a small two-piece bath in the master enough? I know if this house was for sale, most buyers would be critical of the master bath, needing two sinks and a shower to get ready in the morning. I also know that the house, in its current form, works quite well for our family. Everyone manages to get out the door on time every morning. What would you do?

  • Terri

    Brad W,
    If your family is surviving fine with one full bathroom, then perhaps all you may want to do is update the fixtures in both, or not. In most of these situations, the deciding factor is money. If people have extra to burn, they decide that the change would improve their lives (maybe not only because it makes it easier having a better organized living space, but also because they take pleasure in new design elements).

    The slowest approach, of course, is to not waste materials by just dumping cabinets, fixtures and so on. If any money is spent it should be used to increase the energy efficiency (windows, doors, toilets, shower heads, insulation, HVAC system, etc.)

    Paint and other smaller changes such as converting carpet to wood can do wonders for just changing the look, if that’s all that’s really needed. That’s what I’ve done since I can’t afford much else. Fortunately, I have an energy efficient home and there are two bathrooms, though we’d never use the showers at the same time anyway (it’s usually only a two-piece bathroom that’s needed to offload morning demand, don’t you find?).

  • Jim N

    [img]venthoodmurdockyoungdotcomcutlertownhouse.jpg[/img]

    I’ve been interested in passive houses for some time and, coincidentally, ran across some discussions this morning about kitchen vents and the whether you need/want make-up air (http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/search/node/hoods). The short version is that with a tightly sealed home you probably don’t want a hood vent that that sucks more than 100 cfm. Otherwise your house becomes much less efficient. The suggestions were to either skip a hood or go with a charcoal-filtered recirculating vent. It’s also my understanding that you don’t want to tie your hood into your energy/heat recovery ventilator.

    In my book 100 cmf is pretty wimpy. It’s also going to miss a lot of the greasy steam that will end up on the walls and cabinets. We eat a lot of Asian food, including stir fried fish, lots of garlic, and the best Cambodian egg rolls you’ve ever had. The food is wonderful; the leftover odors are less so. It can take 2 or 3 days to get rid of odors during the winter when we can’t open all the windows. We’ve do have a hood that vents out the roof, but it simply isn’t powerful enough for the job.

    We hope to eventually build (or upgrade our current home) to passive house standards and have a fresh smelling home. The best solution I’ve come up with so far is a vent hood of about 100 cfm that would look like the one in the picture. You can also see it at: http://www.murdockyoung.com/projects/cutler-townhouse/#/images/3/

    The advantage of this hood is that it could be lowered directly over the odiferous pot/skillet and let the ERV handle the rest. The industrial look of the hood is growing on me, too. We’re hoping we can have our great food, fresh air, and efficiency. I’d be interested in others’ thoughts on this.

  • Jim N

    Oops. Looks like I posted to the wrong discussion. Sorry about that.