It’s that time of year again already!? 2017 was a big one for Henhouse and we are so grateful. This year was filled with more projects than ever (and many more to come in the new year), lots of great collaborations, and a new home for my family!

I’ve been looking forward to sharing more of our new house with you, and if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you might have seen a few sneak peeks and progress photos. It’s been fun to start fresh in a new space, and work together as a family to make this house feel like our own.
We started work on the house right away, focusing on the kitchen and a few other upgrades to the main floor. Here’s a look at some of the before photos.

Before

The photos above are of the kitchen and breakfast nook before the renovation. It was it good shape, and the layout was OK but I wanted to create something special and durable to suit our family. I came up with a plan to add some more counter space, maximize storage, and make the breakfast nook more usable for our family of five.

Above you can see the before shots of the dining area, the front foyer and the wall in the breakfast nook/ den before we ripped it out and rebuilt it to create more space.

After

After years of creating custom kitchens for my clients, I finally had the chance to create one for my own family! We are all so happy with how it turned out.

We took everything out of the kitchen, and installed new hardwood flooring, new custom cabinetry, countertops, fixtures and lighting. We also changed the layout to create more counter space for when we have multiple cooks in the kitchen!

The tile backsplash goes all the way to the ceiling in the sink area and adds a bit of texture and reflects the light. I chose a stained wood for the lower cabinets to add warmth, and white uppers that match the wall paint for an airy and continuous feel. We are loving the open shelf over the sink for everyday, high use items – it’s so easy to grab what we need and adds interest.

In the breakfast nook we opened up a wall to the kitchen, and added a column to mimic one at the opposite end of the kitchen. The wall I mentioned before was ripped out and replaced with a beautiful curved wall. You can see the progress photos above – our builder did an incredible job! This wall ties in with the front foyer, and gave us space to add more seating around the breakfast nook.

The dining area is off of one end of the kitchen and is a lovely bright space with windows that look out into the trees on our property. I decided to add some personality with wallpaper and funky lighting, and take full advantage of the bright airy feeling in this room. It feels fresh and bright in this space now, and the warm wood tones keep it cozy and inviting.

As you can see, I’ve been adding a dash of holiday decor here and there throughout the house. After purging so many things during the move, and with a fresh start in our new home, it felt right to keep things natural and simple. I pulled out a few items that I love and that fit in with the space, and sprinkled them around for a more subtle look.

The front foyer also got new wallpaper, new floors, light fixtures, and fresh paint. There’s so much beautiful natural light in the space, and lots of storage hidden in the curved wall.

We are loving our new home! We settled in right away, and it feels like we’ve lived here for so long even through it has only been a few months. We have a few more projects and details to take care of like replacing the kitchen island, toss cushions and lighting, but this place already feels like home. We’re so looking forward to the years ahead, and spending our first Christmas together here.

And on that note, we want to wish all of you a very happy holiday season and all the best in the new year! Thank you for following along on our journey, and be sure to check back in soon as we head into 2018 – we have a feeling that it’s going to be an exciting year!

After a great summer break we are back in full swing with a number of fall projects in the works! Since we have so much on the go right now, we thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peek at a few of our works in progress. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to!

Lindola Place

 

We have been having lots of fun with this beautiful Halifax town house. Our client described it to us as having the same feel of the famous New York Brownstones. The house is elegant and stately, with a full bricked exterior, high ceilings, gorgeous tall windows and high-end finishes.

Our clients are a busy family in need of storage, furnishings, and lighting solutions for the main floor of the house. Having just completed interior renovations four years ago, we had the perfect backdrop to create a family friendly space with lots of personality.

Our clients have sophisticated taste and are world travellers with an eclectic sensibility, so we knew we could have a bit of fun with bold fabrics, furnishings and accessories that were playful but with sophisticated bones.

We started out by designing storage solutions for the living and dining rooms. The built ins in the living area designate a space for the client’s piano, book collection and existing artwork. In the dining area, the built ins help to balance out the space, and add architectural interest and of course lots of storage!

In the images above, you can see the living area coming together, and our plans for the kitchen/ dining area.  We are waiting for a few more items to be delivered and are looking forward to showing you the completed project very soon!

Oakland Street Project

This is a custom kitchen renovation that will be underway this fall/ winter. We have just completed the design phase, and came up with a plan to refresh the space with new custom cabinetry, countertops, lighting and finishes.

The images below are digital renderings of our design.

The look is updated classic with soft grey and off-white painted cabinetry, and brass hardware and fixtures. The countertops will be dark grey quartz with black faucets to add weight and presence. We can’t wait to get started!

South End Refresh

We are just getting started on this small refresh in Halifax. The client wants to update her great room and add the the finishing touches to the dining area. We will be working with some of her existing furniture and lighting and brining in some new more modern fixtures. We are also working on a fabric scheme for curtains, toss cushions and upholstery.

We’ve come up with a fun concept for the kitchen area lighting. The nickel pendants and spherical fixture above are existing fixtures that we are keeping. The two new fixtures will go over the island and in the living area. We found these simple and casual bar stools for the kitchen, a new faucet and other accessories to freshen things up.

River John Project

This is a big, big project that we started early this summer. Our client has an incredible summer home in River John, Nova Scotia that needs furnishings throughout the interior and exterior spaces. With approximately 5000 square feet of space to cover, we decided it was best to get a second designer on board! We are so happy to team up with local designer Nancie Theakston Phipps who’s cottage style is truly impeccable.
To make things more manageable we broke this project down into two stages – the main floor / outdoor porch areas and the upstairs bedrooms. We started by creating furniture layout plans, then created a list of the items needed. We sourced the major pieces first, then checked the scale of the items by taping them out on-site. This gave us a good idea of the sizes and the flow of each space.
The images above are most of the pieces we have sourced for the great room which includes the living room, dining room, casual dining area and kitchen. We also created a plan for the front and side porch with outdoor seating and dining  areas. 

We are nearing the end of phase one, and just about everything is ready to be shipped to River John in one big load! Nancie and I will join in on the fun of putting everything into place. Stay tuned for the photos!

Bessie North Project

The last project we want to share is something a little different! This fall, we were contacted by local chef Dave Smart to create and execute a design concept for a twelve seat intimate dining experience in an old farmhouse just outside of Canning, Nova Scotia. The restaurant space is an extension off Dave’s home, with accommodations above for overnight airbnb guests.

Dave and his wife Susan want a cosy space that feels simple yet enveloping. We took our cues from the mountains and fields that surround the property. We will use deep rich colours for the walls and trim and furnish the space with vintage art, rich wood patina, kilim carpets and period lighting. 

One of the most charming and unique aspects of this dining experience is that the food is cooked by the homeowner, so it’s important for Dave and Susan to be able to interact with their guests. The kitchen is partially open to the dining rooms and we felt it made sense for it to feel like an extension of a home but also a professional space.

You can follow along with their already steady business on instagram @chefdavesmart and Facebook at Bessie North House

We will be wrapping up most of these projects this fall & winter and we will be sure to share the final results with you!

What a Summer it has been so far! The Henhouse team has taken on some incredible projects this season. We’re about to take our annual summer retreat to our family cottage in Ontario, but before we go we wanted to share some enticing photos of a few projects we have on the go!

We are thrilled to be working with local builders MRB Contracting on a few upcoming projects. We are big fans of their work, and it’s fun for us to have a chance to design for a more contemporary and clean aesthetic.

This is MRB’s Starboard project, a new residential build that’s currently in progress in Halifax. MRB contacted us to take on several aspects of the interior including flooring, finishes and wall treatments, as well as plumbing and millwork.

The design is simple, with a clean and minimal look that is softened by the white wood floors and natural wood accents. The main level has an open concept, multifunctional space that will serve as a cooking, dining, work and leisure area.

The images above are digital renderings, and we can’t wait to see the finished result this Fall!

The second home we have in the works is MRB’s Harvard Street build. This is another home in Halifax that will be nearing completion this Fall. If you know anything about MRB’s work, you know that they go the extra mile (and then another extra mile!) to create homes that are high quality, unique and beautiful. The front exterior of this home is covered in 1000 cedar boards, screwed in with over 7000 screws!

For this home, we have designed a cozy and modern kitchen space. It’s sleek and simple with walnut accents that add lots of warmth and texture. There have been a few tweaks to the design you see above, but overall these digital renderings give us an a great visual for what’s to come!

This project is farther afield in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. For these clients, Henhouse worked out the the complete kitchen and great room designs, and sourced finishes, lighting and hardware. Our clients chose to use local contractors and a cabinetmaker in their area. This is a great option for anyone who already has existing relationships with tradespeople nearby. Henhouse is always happy to bring our team on board, but if you have people that you know and trust to work with, we are more than happy to work with them too.

We are just wrapping up the design phase for this project. Above, you can see some of our preparatory work, and a digital rendering of the kitchen. The home is in a newer subdivision and our goal is to add more personality and architectural interest. The chevron backsplash and funky scones are details that will help inject character in the kitchen area, and we’ve worked out a feature wall for the great room that we can’t wait to show you!

And last but not least, we have a kitchen in Moncton, New Brunswick that is currently underway. Like the New Glasgow project, this is another case of personalizing a builder-basic space. Many newer builds lack character and the finishing details that make an interior feel special. The good news is that we get a blank canvas to work with and we can create a space that suits the homeowner’s needs and tastes.

For this kitchen we knocked down the walls to create a larger and more open family space. We went with a shaker style design for the cabinetry and chose earthy greens for the lowers and white for the uppers. It’s a fresh and family friendly design, with lots of workspace and storage. Above you can see some of the renderings, and below are a few photos of the kitchen in progress.

It has been a busy season for us here at Henhouse and we’re so grateful for all our our new clients and collaborators! We are taking a short break for the month of August and we’ll return in September refreshed and ready to dig back into to all of these exciting projects! Have a great summer!

We have exciting news! With the help of a very talented draftsperson, Henhouse now offers 3D rendered models for custom kitchens. With 3D rendering technology we can show our clients what the final result will look like right down to the last detail. Everything in the rendering is exact to what we source for the project.

We love being able to show our clients such a detailed and beautiful representation of what their new kitchen will look like! It’s exciting and a great way to work through the design process.

We are currently working on a custom kitchen and had the opportunity to use this new technique. Located in the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia, this charming home by the sea was ready for a kitchen update.

Here’s a look at a 3D rendering of our kitchen design.

Can you believe these are computer graphics?! We were blown away when we saw these, and our client was thrilled!

The gorgeous limestone floors are original to the home, and we are in the process of refinishing floors in other parts of the house to create a more unified look. We have some beautiful greys and walnut colours in the works for the other flooring that will offer an elegant but laid back feeling.

The look is a mix of high-end /polished and beachy casual. We went with quartzite countertops, and polished nickel hardware and fixtures, and paired that with cabinetry that offers a softer, beach house feel. We chose soft and airy colours that will keep this space feeling bright and fresh.

Here’s a few photos of the job site this week – things are coming along!

This project is well underway and we can’t wait to share final results with you! You can tell us what you think about our 3D renderings or ask us any questions over on our Facebook Page! We love to hear from our readers.

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