Interior renovation: Using gold

Dawn Foord loves to take her work home with her. She's the owner of Sew & Home, a furniture store in Saskatoon, and her husband, Kelly Zerebeski, is a building contractor-a match perfectly suited to bringing sad old homes back to their original glory. So when the couple bought their lakeview home a couple of years back, it wasn't so much a home as a project. The 4,300-square-foot, two-storey house, built and decorated in the 1980s, was a blank canvas on which they could do what they do best.

Renovating around everyday activities
The renovations themselves took place around the activities of everyday life. During the kitchen remodel, they enjoyed backyard barbecues at the poolside with their sons Joseph, 10, and Benjamin, 9. Dated wallpaper was replaced with mod updates: a wintery "Woods" from Cole and Sons in the laundry room; the illustrated black and white faces of Fornasetti's plates in the dining room. Gold Chinoiserie dining chairs add a touch of Hollywood glam in rich contrast to their neutral surroundings while complementing the golden brass handles of the room's French doors-one of the few features reserved from the former design. "I love the glamour of gold," says Foord. "I chose to use it throughout the house in subtle touches."

Adding colour with gold
For instance, two giant gold river stones from Phillips Collection serve as coffee tables in the family room and, in the formal living room, flamboyant gold sconces grace the white walls like oversize tropical flowers. The square wall panels of the living room, formerly papered with peach-coloured flocking, now frame a collection of antique architectural drawings. In the adjacent room, which serves as an office, the walls are painted in reverse-a startling touch of white on black.

Using bold colours
In every room, a stroke of unexpected colour pops off the canvas of white, grey and black to surprise and hold the eye: in the office, a pair of oversize canary yellow lamp stands and, in the master bedroom, a comfy easy chair in kelly green. With each playful nod-from the faux zebra rug in the living room to the ceramic greyhound sentries in the entranceway-it's apparent that Foord not only loves to bring her work home, but has more than a little fun while she's doing it. "It's a rewarding challenge to renovate a dated home," agrees Foord. "You can experiment on yourself in ways you wouldn't be able to convince a client."  wl