After the split comes a fresh start
Just divorced, Erin Hogan sees her reno project as 'a new beginning'

Sheryl Steinberg
The Globe and Mail
June 27, 2008 

Erin Hogan joined 11 other women last January to climb the 19,341-foot Mount Kilimanjaro, a fundraising effort that garnered more than $60,000 for a school in Tanzania. Just prior to that, the 48-year-old mother of two teenaged girls had faced what she laughingly refers to as "the other mountain I climbed" — a bathroom reno.

Newly divorced, Ms. Hogan originally intended to add a heated floor to the master ensuite of her 2,300-square-foot Forest Hill home that she had renovated a decade ago with her husband.

But the project turned into something much bigger — a journey to "make new beginnings."

The galley-like master ensuite at the back of her 1920s Tudor house was contemporary enough — finished in beige marble — but it was very small. More to the point, Ms. Hogan had to walk through the bathroom to get to her home office.

With the help of interior designer Timothy Mather, the two rooms along with a closet were rejigged and turned into an ultrafunctional and feminine space she now calls her "sanctuary."

With their clean-looking white and blue palette and simple lines, the compact bathroom and adjoining dressing room (not even 240 square feet combined) have a boutique-hotel feel yet mesh well with the original leaded-glass windows and other classic features that have been maintained in the house.

A unassuming pocket door divides the two zones when privacy is required, although it is tucked into the wall most of the time, creating an open-concept-like space united by heated white marble floors and shaker panelling running throughout.

The focal point of the suite is a custom-designed floating glass vanity.

It's back-painted in a colour that reminds Ms. Hogan of Tiffany's signature blue. Each piece of the aqua blue glass is framed in metal as if it were art.

Popular in the 1920s, back-painted glass has gone through periodic revivals, Mr. Mather says, most recently as mirrored furniture. The great thing about back-painted furniture, he adds, is that it is reflective, easy to wipe clean and can be tinted to match any fabric or wall colour. "It offers lots of flexibility."

So commanding is the single-sink vanity, it's easy to forget that most of the suite is elegant, creamy white. The small matching desk in the dressing room and the ceiling were painted a soft blue for a tranquil, spa-like feel. A painted ceiling is a signature design feature for Mr. Mather.

"I think of [the ceiling] as a fifth wall," he says. "A lot of people ignore it."

Non-white ceilings can help create happier spaces, according to the Toronto designer. "We live in a grey, cold climate. A can of paint is an easy fix."

He says he has been using more restful colours since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "It affected a lot of people. They're looking for balance and peace and a calmness."

Ms. Hogan, whose motto is "live life large," knows a thing or two about embracing a sense of calm. A physical education teacher and entrepreneur (she recently founded Jems, a company that makes "energy cookies"), she takes comfort in soaking twice a day in her "fantastic" Duravit Starck freestanding tub while listening to the likes of Norah Jones and Frank Sinatra from a speaker that's part of her home's integrated system.

Her five- by six-foot marble shower is about the size of a small walk-in closet — large enough that it doesn't need a glass door or curtain to keep the water from splashing out onto the marble floor. And large enough that there was no need to relocate or cover the window, which is positioned near the shower entrance and overlooks a regular stream of joggers and cyclists on the city's beltline below.

In the dressing room, the attic access hatch was repositioned in the centre of the ceiling, recessed and mirrored to resemble a skylight. "We took a necessity and made a feature out of it," Mr. Mather says.

He also had floor-to-ceiling, white shaker cabinet doors built in a U along three of the walls to keep all of Ms. Hogan's clothing, footwear, accessories, business files and teaching materials under wraps.

In lieu of a separate home office, a work nook was created around the fourth wall with a floating back-painted, blue glass desk sitting pretty under a small, original leaded-glass window and built-in shelving displaying treasured photos and original artwork by her daughters.

At the end of the day, Ms. Hogan says she's happy with her life and her master suite. For a small space, she says she got "almost everything" she could want in a personal sanctuary. "If there was enough room for me to do a yoga class in there," she laughs, "it would be my most perfect space."

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