Home Design Oakville
The Lion’s share of our homes find their place among Oakville’s park-like streets. Home Design in Oakville has, for years seemed to feed of its United Empire Loyalist roots. Along with the strong presence of the Heritage district just south of the downtown we’ve seen this marked influence on Home Design in Oakville. However, more recently the pendulum of home design has been swinging out of the traditional, even rococo-like interiors, into transitional and modern styles. Home design is also shaped by its lakeside location. Cape Cod/New England styling can be seen in some of the more recent infills in the design of homes in the West Oakville/Bronte area. We again sought the input of OM Architecture to get their views on home design in Oakville, and more specifically how they saw the modern vernacular of design coming into play in their projects.
Krzys Olak explained “People always think about resale when they build a new home. They always have “business” thinking in their mind…will we be able to get our money out of it? With many recent immigrant buyers coming into the market many feel that transitional or traditional styling is a “safe bet”. Although having said that, one of my clients sold his home during a modern build when he was in mid build. Taking an offer he couldn’t refuse….So as you can see there is definite demand for modern in home designs.”
We asked Krzys what he felt were the major factors in home design in Oakville and how the current inventory and styling of homes would shape his design approach.
“We need to realize we are living in 2018 in CANADA not in California or Florida and that dictates certain design criteria because of our climate and the way that shapes our living. I think we need to design a house with respect to the neighbourhood, modern but not too aggressive. You should respect architectural vocabulary when you are in a denser area ie downtown/urban neighbourhood however in a residential neighbourhood as long as the building scale, spacing, setbacks and massing is respected I feel a client can express their own style and can build a modern home despite the surrounding traditional architecture. In most municipalities the zoning bylaws address this massing and scale by setbacks and square footage limitations which provides the opportunity to be in keeping with the street. This is the approach followed by Oakville’s Heritage committee. When an existing heritage home needs an addition, it has to appear markedly different. Thus in the home design process as for many communities struggling with the tension between old and new, the modern marries successfully to the traditional and are not such strange bedfellows
For us at Chatsworth Fine Homes, we see home design in Oakville projects is of crucial importance as the market commands some of the highest real estate value, and thus buyers who are looking for and expect great designs in the homes they buy. Brad Miller of Goodale Miller, local Oakville realtors commented that, “A great design on the right street will bring premium dollars, whereas a poorly executed build will languish on the market longer and not enjoy the same pricing advantage as its counterpart that has the “right stuff.” If you are interested in a new home, contact the Chatsworth team to help with your new project!
