<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"   For nine years, Elaine Cecconi lived virtually next door to the plot where her current house now stands and never knew it existed. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s partially concealed behind two semi-detached houses on a dead-end street,&amp;quot; says the designer, who was delighted to learn that she could knock down an old house on the 44-by-90-foot lot and build a home of her own devising. Cecconi, half of Cecconi Simone, one of Canada&amp;#039;s most respected interiors firms, loves this edgy West End neighborhood of Toronto. &amp;quot;This area is one of the last places to be developed in the city,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It is unapologetically honest and working-class, and the people here have no pretensions.&amp;quot; It is also just four minutes from her office. Cecconi describes her new house as a sandwich. The main living quarters are up above street level, on the second floor. This allows for more light to flood into the public part of the interior and for a stronger separation between the master suite and adjacent studio on the top floor and the guest bedrooms, gym and laundry on the first, which is partly below grade. The house was Cecconi&amp;#039;s first residential architecture project and took two and a half years from start to finish. &amp;quot;The exterior wasn&amp;#039;t that important to me,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;The project was all about how it feels on the inside.&amp;quot; A great deal of design attention went into the manipulation of light and views. The main windows face south and are set back two feet; the sense of privacy inside is so complete, she almost never uses the window treatments. Cecconi used to live in a converted furniture warehouse, where she developed a passion for large, open-plan spaces. &amp;quot;I love the minimalist aesthetic, but I don&amp;#039;t live like a minimalist,&amp;quot; she confesses. &amp;quot;If you look in my pantry or my closets, you know I am not a minimalist.&amp;quot; For someone with a lot of stuff, living an uncluttered life in a boldly designed open space with two large dogs requires great planning and storage. Fortunately, Cecconi, who has designed many an expensive hotel room, is an expert at configuring space with the efficiency of a ship&amp;#039;s cabin. In the kitchen, all the cookware and utensils are stashed out of sight in a walk-in pantry and under the counter cupboards. So spare is the look that there aren&amp;#039;t even any visible outlets. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m crazy about things like that,&amp;quot; says Cecconi, who tucked all the outlets into a recess next to the undercounter fluorescent strip lights. One of Cecconi&amp;#039;s favorite elements in the kitchen is a slat wall with removable glass shelves, which she uses like a sheet of lined paper on which she can write a new story whenever she wants to amp up the atmosphere. For a birthday party, she filled the shelves with balloons; at Christmas, with rows of baby white fir trees. &amp;quot;You have to have fun in your space or it feels dead,&amp;quot; she says. Cecconi&amp;#039;s cabinets as well as her countertops are Corian; she has even hidden her Sub-Zero refrigerator behind Corian panels. Lem stools in white vinyl by La Palma came from Studio B in Toronto. Being able to entertain 24 guests at a time and to live comfortably with her two oversize dogs were Cecconi&amp;#039;s main practical considerations as she designed the interior, so durable materials were vital (in her last place, the dogs wore the finish off the wood floors). Here she used pet-proof tinted concrete floors highlighted by aluminum terrazzo strips -- and the floors are embedded with radiant heating to keep feet and paws warm in winter. The main living, dining and kitchen area is one long 1,200-square-foot space punctuated by bold gestures. &amp;quot;There are a lot of horizontal and vertical lines in the interior. The repetition creates drama and cohesion,&amp;quot; says Cecconi. &amp;quot;I also wanted to create a bit of wonderment, especially with the chimney.&amp;quot; The chimneypiece is made of Corian, which is a favorite material of Cecconi&amp;#039;s, one she used extensively in the house. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a seamless material with no grout to get dirty, and you can do almost any pattern or texture,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;If you ever ding or chip it, you can patch it invisibly.&amp;quot; Looking back on the project, Cecconi thinks the hardest part about designing the interior was the kid-in-a-candy-store feeling that she could do anything she wanted. &amp;quot;I was the worst client I&amp;#039;ve ever had,&amp;quot; she jokes. &amp;quot;I can make a decision for a client in a second, but I couldn&amp;#039;t make a decision for myself. We would get new product in the office every day and I would be like, &amp;#039;Oh, gee -- that looks good!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; In the end, trusting her own instincts, as she does for her high-profile clients, and going with her first choices proved the best solution.  What the Pros Know Chromatherapy is the ancient practice of using colored light to balance energy and effect healing. The ancient Egyptians, for instance, built solaria fitted with colored glass panes to build up the body&amp;#039;s immune system. In the West, chromatherapy gained acceptance in the late 19th century thanks to the work of Dr. Edwin Babbitt. As a firm, Cecconi Simone frequently uses chromatherapy lighting for its residential clients. &amp;quot;It works best in a more neutral-colored environment,&amp;quot; explains Cecconi. Ideal places for chromotherapy, she says, are in a living room niche or framing one wall, in a bedroom ceiling or built into a tub or a shower in a bathroom. Chromatherapy lights are fiber-optic or LED and can be adjusted to stay on one color or cycle through the color wheel. Whatever the health benefits may be, chromatherapy lighting certainly lets you change the mood of a room with the flip of a switch. Click here to view the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/home-remodeling-renovating/home-makeovers/a1383/northern-enclosure-48624/>