The post Design Week: The Dreamhouse Revealed appeared first on The Dreamhouse Project.

We sat down with Kevin to get an understanding of the process he goes through when he approaches a design project. As complex and technical as his job is, at it’s core, he describes it as being incredibly simple.

I listen to what my clients want, and then I draw it.

To get more detailed, it’s really all about listening to people and watching their hands and body language as they describe what they’re looking for. Being able to gain an understanding of what their wants and needs are for their living space from their gestures and the emotion in their voices is a skill that Kevin has honed well over the years.

Coming out of our initial meeting, within a day he had rough sketches of his interpretation of the dream we had described to him. Incredibly, they were bang on. With the exception of a few minor details, his sketch was exactly what we had pictured in our minds.

Exploratory sketch by KW Design

Refined sketch by KW Design

From there, Kevin went through our wish list and created a rough plan for the layout of the living space.

Draft floor plan sketch by KW Design

Next, Kevin took his sketches and converted them into detailed CAD drawings which he presented to us. We were prepared for several rounds of revisions, but again, there’s something to be said for working with a designer who just gets you.  Maybe it’s the years of ‘telepathic’ Pictionary played in the Washington household (Kes and Kevin have actually been banned from playing as a team on games night), or maybe Kevin is just really THAT good at what he does.  Either way, outside of one or two minor tweaks to the layout, his initial drawings were pretty much the final plans we submitted to the City.  And here they are…

Washington Residence Ground Floor Plan by KW Design

Washington Residence Second Floor Plan by KW Design

Washington Residence Front Elevation by KW Design

Washington Residence Rear Elevation by KW Design

Kes got so excited when he saw these that he decided to take the elevation drawings into Photoshop to create colour renderings, lol!

Washington Residence Front Elevation Color Rendering

Washington Residence Rear Elevation Color Rendering

So there you have it!  The Dreamhouse.  We’d love to hear what you think!

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The post Design Week: The Look Book appeared first on The Dreamhouse Project.

Once we got through the initial research, we took a more in-depth look at the photos we had compiled. What we figured out is that overall we love modern contemporary architecture and we want our house to reflect that in its design both inside and out. That said, we’d still like to maintain a bit of neighbourhood charm because let’s be honest, we’re not trying to create an art installation in the middle of the suburbs!

We tried to categorize the photos into ‘wants’ and ‘likes.’ From there we could focus in on the elements of each photo we actually wanted to try to incorporate in the house design, versus just the things we liked – for example an overall look or colour scheme. Once that was settled, we started putting together what we call The Dreamhouse Project Look Book.

Our Look Book is basically our wish list of features broken down by room or space within the house, along with our final compilation of inspiration photos and notes outlining the elements we’d like to incorporate. The plan is for it to continue to be a living, breathing document that we can build on and get more detailed with as the project progresses.  Once we had the first draft of the Look Book completed, we sat down with Kevin and walked him through it to help him get the ball rolling on designing the house.

Here is what we came up with…

For the initial meeting with Kevin, we focused mostly on the exterior photos and design features since we knew he’d need that insight the most when it came to designing the overall structure and planning the elevations.

The Exteriors:

We love these 3 exterior styles…

Bowman Residence Front Exterior by Cornerstone Architects, Austin, TX

The home above is closest to what would fit our neighbourhood, but we’d like to push the contemporary line a little further. Something that sort of toes the line between ‘safe’ and ‘art installation’.

Goodwin Project Streetscape by En2 Development Corp, Toronto, ON

We’re completely in love with this house! The mix of stone & cedar siding is beautiful. And of course, stunning floor-to-ceiling windows!! We’d love to incorporate a ton of natural light into our space with windows like these.

Linden Hills Contemporary – by Andrea Swan Architecture, Minneapolis, MN

The cedar lattice work here is sweet – a great and unique way to provide privacy while still maintaining the visual aesthetic!

Other nice exterior features…

In terms of the interior, aside from our wish list, we pretty much relied on Kevin’s expertise & left the floor-plan layout to him.  The actual interior design of the house – colors, lighting, finishes &, furniture placement will come later (we’ll blog about those details in the next Design Week), but tomorrow we’ll take you through the big reveal – floor-plans and elevation drawings of The Dreamhouse!

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The post Design Week: The Inspiration appeared first on The Dreamhouse Project.

When we decided to chase the dream, our goal was to create a home that embodied the feel of the open-concept, urban contemporary loft, while satisfying our need for the larger living space generally only found at affordable prices outside of the city.

To get started, we took to the web to figure out our likes and dislikes in terms of style and quickly found Houzz to be a fantastic resource for all things home.

Here’s a look at some of the houses that were the jumping off point of inspiration for us:

Check out our full set of ideabooks on Houzz!

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