The Glenora home the Schilfs built in 2000 is not a bold, modernist statement. Rather, it is almost an understatement -- a lovely, craftsman-style house made entirely of local materials that fits perfectly with the historic charm of the neighbourhood. Reclaimed clinker brick, Manitoba Tyndall stone and stone-dashed stucco made from Villeneuve pea gravel give the house its old-world character.
Schilf's painstaking attention to detail is evident in both the exterior and the interior. Every angle, nook and cranny was carefully planned to create visual interest. Schilf cleverly maximized the space, tucking a deceptively huge, 1,100-square-foot master bedroom loft into the often-wasted area under the roof. He also designed the home with the family's future needs in mind, separating his daughters' main-floor bedrooms from the noisier main rooms of the house and roughing in plumbing in one bedroom closet where he will one day create a bar and TV room. Upstairs, too, plumbing for a second bathroom has been roughed-in, in case any future owner wants to divide the space to create another bedroom.
Schilf, principal with Hodgson Schilf Architects in Edmonton, recently showed us around his family's unique home, with wife Melissa and daughters Riley and Avery.
Q. Why did you choose this house?
A. "When we bought the property it was a flipper. We were going to hang on to it for a couple of years and then look to build somewhere else, but then we fell in love with the neighbours and the neighbourhood."
Q. When you decided to build a new house on the site, what did you take into consideration?
A. "Designing a house and building a home is a family affair and you have to listen to your family. And everything I heard was that it had to be warm and cosy, it had to be traditional in a lot of ways and it had to fit into the neighbourhood."
Q. Do colleagues ever wonder why you went the traditional route?
A. "Architects, especially if you're a designer, are judged by what they live in.
"I've done modern work. In some instances, you could call it cutting-edge. But I've always had the attitude that you design for what your client's needs are. If you're doing your job as an architect, you're really facilitating their vision or their dreams."
Q. What look were you trying to create in the house?
A. "It's craftsman with a bit of an English-manor flavour or a bit of a Tudor flavour. That's the look we were going for. And that's Glenora."
"My wife is from Pembroke (Ontario) and there are a lot of historical homes there. It would have gone more gingerbread-y if she'd had her way. To temper that slightly, I think I came up with something that was a good balance for the two of us. My craftsmanship in the craftsman-style home is really the detail. All the little things."
Q. Why did you put your master bedroom in what is usually the attic?
A. "I spent a year working as an architect in Germany and I had an apartment in the roof. We don't take advantage of that in this county. The roofs are all trussed over and they're all lost space. In Europe, everybody lives in the roof and it happens to be the coolest space. Look at all the corner details you can create by using this space."
Q. How hard was it to create this loft area?
A. "I finished it all myself. I did all the framing, the boarding the wiring, everything."
Q. Why?
A. "I love it. That's what I do. I built the garage in the back. I just enjoy doing that kind of thing."
Q. Why did you choose to create a separate living room, dining room and kitchen instead of the more popular "great room"?
A. "Having rooms that are defined can be a nice thing, instead of everything being open. You can define space differently, with objects or with enclosure. We chose to go more of that traditional kind of defining of space."
Q. What is your favourite room?
A. "I think the family's favourite room is the living room, and we use it. We go through cords of wood here. It is a little indulgent to use a wood-burning fireplace, but I think it's the coziness. It just feels like home and that's really what we were after."
"My favourite room is the nook. This room in the morning is the nicest room in the whole house. The sun, if I get up at 5:30 or 6:00, that sun is coming in through the window. We have such good neighbours, we don't even have a fence. This is almost like you're in the woods."
Q. Why was it so important to you to build a house that fit into the neighbourhood?
A. "I think people build way more than what they need. It's kind of a symptom of our society as a young country relative to the rest of the world. If you temper that a bit and say, 'What do I need and what would feel good and what do I think is right?' Neighbours, one to another, can start to build things that promote more of a neighbourhood feel, a sense of scale in the neighbourhood."
-- Canwest News Service
