The ground floor of a semi-detached townhouse in Toronto is rarely generous with light. At Mathersfield Project, designer Sam Sachs inherited a floor plate that is further complicated by a structural wall that separates the lounge and dining room from a sunken kitchen and a rear family room – two zones that occupy the same house but function independently of each other. Instead of restructuring the floor plate, Sacks moved the existing opening to align with the living room and dining room and then enlarged it. A set of custom steel and glass bifold doors now spans the doorway – present when the house needs to function as a two-bedroom Sam Sacks is renovating a 4,600-square-foot Rosedale townhouse in Toronto, turning an old contractor’s interior into an architecturally-considered home.
The decision to work with the existing architecture rather than against it underpins the wider logic of the renovation. The original construction of the house was general contracting work – drywall partitions, box proportions and surfaces that had no particular intention. Sacks corrected this through addition rather than demolition. Tall traditional baseboards and custom plaster crown molding in the living room and dining room give the presence of the main rooms. A low-profile beamed ceiling in the kitchen and family room ties the spaces together cohesively, while Versailles-patterned oak floors on the ground floor ground the entire composition.
The powder room on the main floor is where Saks took her biggest risk. A wrought-brass pedestal sink sits atop deep Venetian plaster walls – a pairing that works because both materials share a purposeful surface texture, one cast, one hand-applied. On the second floor, the master ensuite moves through white Volaka marble, Venetian plaster and geliz tile, materials that sit in tension between the coolness of the stone and the irregular surfaces of the ceramic. The third floor en-suite bathroom is finished in green marble.
Throughout, the staircase connecting these floors was rebuilt from scratch. The coupe pats gave way to a continuous white oak handrail and powder-coated metal posts – a detail emphasized since the staircase is visible from many levels and its original design undermined the architectural ambitions of every room around it.
See more information about Sam Sacks’ website.
Photo by Lauren Miller.
