When working with a typical city lot that allows for a two-car garage, the third car, the project car that your husband Bill has been restoring for, oh, 12 years now takes the place of a daily driver in the garage.

When it snows you have to scrape the windshield, when it’s hot you have to lay a towel on the black leather so you don’t burn your legs, all the while resentment for that project car grows as it’s all snugly tucked into the garage.

Solution?

Put in a tandem garage. It’s another garage bay placed behind the current two-car garage, like this:

This way you both get to have your cars in the convenience of the garage, and ‘Glenda’ (what a weird car name, but hey, Bill named her) gets a spot too.

Bonus? If you put in some doors to the rear yard, that space can double as storage for your patio cushions, that floating swan for the pool, and outdoor toys for the kids.

It’s a win-win.

Is it just me, or are you loving the modern farmhouse trend that’s going on right now? I actually hesitate to call it a ‘trend’ though as farmhouses have obviously been around for a very long time.

We’re just refreshing it to give a more up-to-date twist!

This means cleaner lines, typically one-storey, and light colours.

I’d argue that simple lines are what keep the design long-lasting, don’t you?

Indecision can be quite stressful when deciding how the exterior of your house is going to look. I mean, there’s a cornucopia (side note: isn’t cornucopia a great word?) of options that you can choose from, which ones should you choose?

If you’re frozen with the overwhelming decision, how about getting a rendering to help you decide?

This homeowner was faced with similar bricks at different price points, and although I still recommend seeing the material in person on a full scale project (not just a sample board), we came up with these combinations to help them decide.

Some have very subtle differences, and some made big changes. After driving around to look at full scale projects of her favourites, she was able to make her final choices.

No more waking up sweaty because of the stress of too many options!

Tuscan-style homes have always been interesting. The highly textured stone combined with the smooth stucco, the archways, the repetitive windows, all work together to create a facade that causes your eye to jump around unveiling all the little details.

I love the combination of the large chunky elements (like this front entry) and the fine details (like the iron railing on the balcony).

When you’re designing your own home. Think about how you can draw your eye over the entirety of your facade with tiny details. They all add up to make a big impact.

Do you have a hard time visualizing your home with only the blueprints?

We can create a 3D rendering to show you your future home in colour!

Get a better sense of the jigs and jogs of your facade, and how tall the roof is really going to look from the street.

Good news is, you don’t have to have us create your blueprints in order to take advantage of this service! If you’ve obtained your blueprints elsewhere, just send us the CAD file or PDF drawings with your desired colour palette and we can draw it up for you!

Here’s an example of a house that wasn’t designed in our office, but the homeowner wanted to see how it was going to look:

Send us an email with your project to discuss!