What do you do when you want to keep your front door a formal entry (read: no kids backpacks thrown haphazardly, no piles of unused shoes littering the floor), but you don’t want the only other access filtering through the garage?

A second entry!

I also call these friend and family entries because those folks don’t need you to put on a front like your house is clean all the time. The mudroom is spacious, they have a place to toss their coats and shoes, and they probably already know the key code to get in.

The secondary entrance also serves as a spot to let the dog out (maybe add in a dog wash for those dogs that will just jump into ditch water any chance they get).

I can’t spew enough love for the secondary entrances!

Sounds like a contradiction, I know. How can something be open, yet private?

Let’s take a look at this master ensuite:

The glass walls of the shower make the room feel open and airy, and allow the light from the window travel through.

Ok, so what about the privacy?

Tucking that toilet into a little cubby keeps the area open, but you don’t feel on display to your entire backyard when you don’t have time to close the blinds during your mad dash to the toilet after finishing your comically large drink from the movies on the drive home. All you need to do is frost that little window beside the toilet to keep the light, but stop peering eyes from coming through.

Bonus? The wall that wraps around the toilet creates a perfect space to hang your towels beside the shower!

We brought a fresh outlook on traditional shapes to this two-storey beauty. A mix of materials (the mix of asphalt roofing and metal roofing always lights me up!) and the curve over the entrance entices you in!

This is a home we developed to contrast the common ‘lower level brick, upper level siding’ facade.

It is a very traditional look, with the feeling of strength and longevity that stone and brick convey.

I love the detail of the stone being carried partway up into the second storey, don’t you?

Natural light is so important to how a home feels. When a home is bright and airy, it just feels cleaner, more cozy, and freeing (or am I the only one that feels constricted or trapped in dark spaces?).

Here’s a new idea to help bring more light into your home: side porches.

This home has a cut-out in the middle to allow for a side porch on the main floor, and the cut-out continues all the way up the second floor, but instead of being covered on the second floor there are additional windows.

This allows a central staircase, but still having light flood the stairwell rather than being enclosed by rooms on all sides.

Anyone else want to throw those double sliding doors wide open to allow fresh air to permeate all through the home (with the screening on the other side keeping out the bugs)?