Avenue Calgary — January 2018

AvenueCalgary.com 65

CLOCKWISE

FROM RIGHT

The main bedroom

stays true to the

home’s overall colour

palette of blues and

greys.

Homeowner Tricia

Flanagan’s brother

Peter Gorman of

Vancouver-based

Gorman Studios

collaborated on the

artfully designed main-

floor powder room.

A ladder-accessed

loft in the main

bedroom closet

provides extra storage

space (or a potential

play area for future

grandkids).

DeJong emphasizes that when it comes to one-level living
it’s essential to separate the public spaces from the private. “It’s
automatic when you have a two-storey house — the bedrooms
are upstairs and not in public view. But [in a one-level house] you
have to protect that. If you’re in the public part of the house, you
should never see a bed or a toilet. I think it’s an absolute [design]
failure if you’re sitting at a kitchen island and you can see a toilet,”
he says.
In the Flanagan home, a solid section of wall along the stairs
serves as a buffer between the main bedroom and the living-din-
ing room. The front entrance is also partially closed off from the
rest of the home. These design principles cater to privacy concerns,
but also create an element of visual interest and surprise. “I like
to be drawn into houses where you wonder, ‘what’s around the
corner?’” says DeJong. “To do that you have to provide something
to focus on.”

The bedroom suite is an apt display of this philosophy. To the

left of the entry is a spa-like bathroom illuminated by a skylight,

with the toilet hidden around a corner from the large soaker tub.

Exiting the ensuite through the bedroom closet reveals a silver

ladder up to a loft area between the top of the storage features

and the 15-foot ceiling. “Overflow sleeping for snoring issues,”

laughs Tricia, “or someday if we have grandkids, it’ll be a great

little play area.”

The home also features a range of outdoor spaces that could

provide future play areas — the private stone courtyard just beyond

the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass in the bedroom, or the outdoor liv-

ing room off the kitchen equipped for year-round use with built-in

overhead heaters and a tabletop fireplace.

“We use the whole house,” says Tricia. “Every room gets used,

even with just the two of us. There are no atrophied rooms in

this house.”