Before & After: How This Coal Harbour Townhouse Became an Artful Urban Retreat

It wasn’t that this homeowner didn’t love her house in the suburbs outside Vancouver—she’d spent years finding the perfect finishes and the right pieces, and designing a comfortable space that was made just for her. But once her son had jetted off to university and she was officially an empty-nester, she could feel the appeal of living in the city: a townhouse that was perfectly positioned on the seawall for weekend strolls, but could just as easily be secured so she could head out of town on more adventures.

The problem was that the 1990s townhome she’d purchased in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour neighbourhood hadn’t been renovated since it was first built. So, she called Kelly Reynolds and Chad Falkenberg of Falken Reynolds into service. “The design brief was to capture all the things the client loved about that previous house,” says Reynolds, “and repackage it into a smaller footprint in an urban setting.”

Gutting a concrete and steel condo is “a discovery process,” says Falkenberg. Despite the constraints of working within the existing infrastructure—transforming an awkward kitchen into one with an island and a more chef-friendly design, for example, and ensuring the existing plumbing would still work—took time and care, but ultimately they were still able to start from scratch, with some of the building infrastructure disguised behind millwork. All the better to host the homeowner’s extensive art collection: “Making sure there was enough wall space to showcase it was a part of the process,” says Falkenberg.

The lower level is designed to be welcoming and cozy, and yet still bright and open to the green spaces outside. The main living area is adjacent to the entry door that faces the water and the seawall, and so the team created a transition zone so that visitors don’t land straight into the living room. “Instead of adding an element that looks like a piece of furniture, or just extending the wall, we decided to extend the wall but then cut pieces at irregular angles out of it, to make it look like it had always been that long,” says Falkenberg.

In the living room itself, a large white sliding panel conceals the TV and serves as a canvas for a gold-plated sculpture from Allan Switzer (the piece itself acting as a tool to move the panel across). Furniture pieces were selected to feel collected over time, rather than to furnish a new home, with Vancouver designer Ben Barber’s Artemis coffee table serving as a sculptural anchor to Womb and Amedee chairs and Piero Lissoni’s 8 sofa from Cassina. “The intent was to create spaces that feel sophisticated, layered and effortlessly playful all at once,” says Reynolds.

The adjacent kitchen features one of the materials the homeowner fell in love with at her previous home: Volga Blue granite, a black stone that features flecks of iridescent blue when light hits it at the right angle. “The trick was how we use it in a small space, where a black granite can be quite overwhelming,” says Falkenberg. A combination of white and fumed oak cabinetry keeps the space airy and light, while a thinly framed open shelf above the fridge and pantry allows light to pass through from the windows in the adjacent mudroom and living room.

And while the lower level is rich in warm woods, burnished metals and cozy fabrics, upstairs, the primary suite is white, bright and feminine, with a floral Murano glass chandelier overhead and a custom bed from Vancouver’s Ffabb Home. The ensuite is almost entirely white, from the brilliant white glazed ceramic tile and millwork to the oversized soaker tub, save for one feature wall of aqua-hued tile, a calming reference to the Burrard Inlet that’s just outside the windows.

It’s a home that’s as tailored to the homeowner’s new urban life as her previous home was, despite the downsizing—and just what she’d hoped for. “She’s a person who has really wide interests—including owning a Harley-Davidson,” says Falkenberg, noting there’s dedicated space for her boots and helmet in the mud room. “And she embraces all sorts of experiences in life. We wanted the space to feel like it can go in one direction and be more casual, but it can also be really elegant when it needs to be.”

Before

After