1. real estate
2. apartments

POST HOMES
PH8 nationalpost.com
FOOD FEST!
TABLE D’OZ
GET READY TO SALIVATE
ON OSSINGTON
WHEN A CONDO LOT
TURNS INTO A PICNIC
It was a common refrain
echoed by many apartment
dwellers, and one that left Kyle
Schuneman feeling frustrated.
“I would hear a lot of people
say ‘It’s just a rental’ or ‘I’ll just
be here for a year....’ And I just
kind of felt like: ‘Why are you
wasting this time?”’ the designer says in an interview.
“We only have these spaces
once and they’re your own, and
you should be able to splash
your personality around no
matter what the regulations
are. There are always solutions
to creative constraints.”
In The First Apartment
Book (Clarkson Potter), Mr.
Schuneman highlights various ways individuals can show
their creative sides within
small spaces, including repurposing existing pieces, craft
projects and scoping out new
and vintage finds. The colourful tome features real-life home
facelifts where Mr. Schuneman
helped apartment dwellers
overcome design obstacles
within their respective homes.
The 27-year-old Chicago native has been designing since
age 19, starting off art directing in Los Angeles and prop
styling and working with commercial clients before taking
on interior clients.
His friends, peers and
others would tell him they
wanted what they’d see in his
portfolio for their own homes
— but couldn’t afford it.
“I was living a bit in juxtaposition of ‘I’m young, I get
living in small spaces in cities,
not having lots of money,’ but
at the same time, working with
these very high-end people
that you can let your creativity fly,” says Mr. Schuneman,
founder of Live Well Designs.
“For me, it was much more
about showing people in their
twenties and thirties that
good design doesn’t have to be
expensive.”
For those unsure of where
to start design-wise, Mr.
Schuneman will ask questions
about a store that represents
their style, the type of landscapes they like, or even peek
into their closets — all which
can be tell-tale signs of their
favoured aesthetic.
Mr. Schuneman says it’s key
for individuals to assess how
they need their space to function and to keep scale in mind
NATIONAL POST, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
Believe the hype: Ossington really is packed with some of Toronto’s best restaurants. And today only (Sept.
22), from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m, the area’s top chefs will come together to transform the parking lot at 109
Ossington Ave., where a future condo is going up, into Table d’OZ. Sample tasty bites from newcomers such as The Saint and The Grove — just named the No. 1 new restaurant in Canada by Maclean’s
magazine. The Painted Lady will be offering pulled pork sliders with a shot on the side and Yours
Truly is doing salt cod inari. Other participants include: Amaya Express, Boehmer, BQM, Hawker Bar
and Lakeview. Food and drink pairings will cost $2 to $8 with all proceeds to be matched in a charitable donation to The Stop, a food bank. And for an old-school serenade, the folks from Grasshopper
Records will be spinning vinyl. National Post
FIRST TIME’S
THE CHARM
Landlord says no to paint?
Velcro the walls with fabric, author suggests
By Lauren La Rose
when working within smaller
environs. So avoid placing
an oversized sofa in a studio
space.
“You really want to work
with proportions,” he says.
“That doesn’t mean you have
to lose comfort by any means
— but you just have to be realistic.” Playing around with the
placement of larger pieces is a
great rule of thumb for small
spaces, he notes.
For a studio in Seattle, a
bed was positioned horizontally while the desk was then
placed perpendicular from
MARKETING FEATURE
the wall, creating a built-in effect. The desk also doubled as
a nightstand.
Various how-to craft projects incorporated within
dwellings featured in The First
Apartment Book can be replicated by readers by following
step-by-step instructions. In
addition to more conventional offerings such as pillows,
shades and wall stencils, there
are other inventive projects
like a chicken wire pot rack,
a record headboard and mirrored tennis racquets.
“I didn’t want to create
a craft project that I knew
people wouldn’t do or wouldn’t
want to do,” Mr. Schuneman
says. “There isn’t sewing involved. There aren’t things
that intimidate me, and I kind
of worked with my gut in that
regard. If it didn’t intimidate
me, then I thought it won’t intimidate others.”
In instances where renters face redesign restrictions,
Mr. Schuneman offers creative alternatives. In a Boston
apartment where the landlord
wouldn’t allow use of paint, he
created fabric-covered padded
panels that would Velcro to
the wall.
For couples or others sharing accommodation, Mr.
Schuneman says the aim
should be to showcase the design tastes of both dwellers.
Working with roommates in
Boston, the streamlined sofa
and colonial side table in the
“living room” area suited the
style of one, while the industrial reading lamp and colourful chevron carpet tiles reflected the tastes of the other.
A common theme woven
throughout the book and also
embraced by Mr. Schuneman
as part of his design philosophy is the emphasis on tailoring spaces to reflect how
people truly live.
Mr. Schuneman humorously refers to Cleveland-based
client Holt as an “entryway
stripper” for his tendency to
take of his tie, belt and empty
his pockets within moments
of walking inside his place. He
recalled finding ties and belts
“stacked six-deep on the doorknobs” when he walked into
Holt’s apartment.
At a local flea market, Mr.
Schuneman found small
bowls for change, a vintage tie
rack, a plaid magnet board for
bills and a set of lamps for the
entryway table — all for $50.
The designer says his goal
is to help individuals build
confidence in honing their
creative eye, notably in seeking out finds. Even if they still
feel they’re lacking, they can
always seek out a friend for a
second opinion while on the
hunt, he notes.
“If you want to try something out, the worst that can
happen is that it can not work
out.”
The Canadian Press
Theeatery
comeswith
thecondo
DINE
Continued from Page PH1
Welcome Home Sweepstakes prizes include a $4-million showhome, a $1.2-million
Muskoka lakefront cottage, a Collingwood townhome, a Toronto condo and more.
Winahomefor$100
&aidcancerresearch
PMHF SWEEPSTAKES
The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation (PMHF)
launched the 2012 edition of
The Welcome Home Sweepstakes earlier this month to
implement Personalized Cancer Medicine at the Princess
Margaret Cancer Centre.
PMHF is offering Ontario’s
most exclusive prize package,
headlined by a $4-million
Oakville showhome designed
and decorated by Lynda
Reeves and the House & Home
design team.
“Princess Margaret Lotteries are widely known for giving away the most incredible
real estate prizes—and this
fall’s lineup is our best yet!”
says Paul Alofs, President &
CEO of The Princess Margaret
Hospital Foundation.
“Net proceeds raised will be
directed to our Personalized
Cancer Medicine program, to
deliver the right treatment to
the right patient at the right
time. This is the gold standard
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Margaret, one of the top five
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world”.
“We loved working on this
home to benefit the Princess
Margaret Cancer Centre,” says
Ms. Reeves.
“The design is a contemporary take on the classic Ontario
stone farmhouse. It’s full of
surprises. I’m so proud of our
entire design team, including architect Ray Murakami,
landscape architect Ronald
Holbrook and custom builder
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The showhome is open
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Other prizes include a $1.2million lakefront cottage in
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Tickets are $100, threepacks for $250 or NEW best
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Tickets are available online at
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calling 1-866-631-1234.
“The client base is already
catering to your business,” he
says. “They understand who
you are and what you do.”
Nearby, a similar story is
unfolding at the Thompson
Residences at The Thompson
Hotel on Bathurst, being built
by Freed in partnership with
the Thompson Hotel Group.
The luxury condominiums will
sit atop two of Toronto’s A-list
restaurants: Scarpetta and
Thompson Diner.
“A restaurant brings an
amenity to the building for
the residents,” says Sandra
Frasson, vice-president of
sales and marketing for Freed.
“They take advantage of the
fact that it’s just downstairs.”
She notes, given the pedestrian traffic on Bathurst, incorporating a restaurant into
the plans was a no-brainer.”
Ms. Frasson continues: “Restaurants used to cater to office
workers, but there’s a whole
new community of people who
live downtown and work here.”
It’s not just the west end
that’s experiencing a boom
in condo restaurants. Aura,
by Canderel at the corner of
Yonge and Gerrard streets, is
set to fill its retail space with
two big chain eateries, Canyon
Creek and Alice Fazooli’s, outlets that aren’t readily available in the downtown core.
“On our block alone, there
are close to 4,000 people living
there,” says Riz Dhanji, vicepresident of sales and marketing at Canderel Stoneridge
Equity Group. “The density
makes sense for various restaurants to be in the area.”
For Mr. Dhanji, his company’s focus is all about creating incentives for tenants, and
to ensure they fill their retail
space with businesses that
give back to the neighbourhood. “Condo retail used to be
an afterthought: ‘We’re building a condo and we have some
retail space, so let’s just put up
a leasing sign and figure it out
TYLER ANDERSON / NATIONAL POST
Weslodge, a modern saloon, has ties to Victory Residences.
afterward.’ ” But now that’s not
the case. “There’s an interesting
study on the Starbucks effect:
When a Starbucks opens in a
residential building, it increases the property value of those
units,” Mr. Dhanji says. “We feel
restaurants will do the same.”
Mimi Ng, vice-president of
sales and marketing at Menkes shares his sentiments.
She and her company have
been working closely with
the Four Seasons Hotels to
build Four Seasons Private
Residences. The five-star
dwelling, at the corner of
Bay Street and Yorkville Avenue, will house the hotly
anticipated Café Boulud and
dbar, brought to the city by
Michelin-starred chef Daniel
Boulud, as well as the city’s
second Buca location.
Though the menus of each
restaurant have yet to be finalized, tenants and guests can
prepare to whet their appetites with fine and fresh French
cuisine as well as hearty,
homemade Italian dishes. It’s
a unique mix that will add a
little something special to the
ecosystem of Yorkville, Ms. Ng
believes. And while that’s important, she knows it’s not always possible for developers
to build a restaurant in a retail
space, especially if the plans are
poorly thought out or rushed.
“There are special design
requirements to make sure
the space is functional for a
restaurant. It has to have the
right infrastructure in terms
of venting and air circulation,” Ms. Ng says. “Also, the
timelines for a condo and retailer or a restaurateur are
very different. Stores work on
much shorter timelines. Their
owners typically don’t get
involved [in project management] or don’t realize there’s
an opportunity to fill retail
space until a building is under
construction.”
Still, Ms. Ng says, it’s worth
it to look to restaurants to fill
condominium business space.
“It’s a quadruple-win, really.
It’s a win for developers, a win
for restaurateur, a win for the
residents in the building and a
win for the neighbourhood.”
National Post