Inside a Bold, Pattern-Filled Toronto Home Designed in Just 9 Months

Cynthia Ferguson had unfinished business with one particular stone house in Toronto. ‘I’d been dying to get my hands on the interior of this house,’ admits Cynthia, who once worked on the property for a client who only wanted exterior updates.

But years later, another longtime client reached out. She’d just bought a house and wanted Cynthia to stop by and advise on a few light improvements – it turned out to be the very same house.

Cynthia’s client, an entrepreneur and a mother of two teenage boys, thought swapping out dated Brazilian cherry floors would suffice. But it took seconds for Cynthia to diagnose a slate of problems with the house design, from poorly scaled wainscoting to an overwrought staircase – not to mention the kitchen and every bathroom (if you do the math, that’s most everything).

‘I don’t hold back,’ says Cynthia, known for her more-is-more mentality. The client wanted this to be their forever home, and so she ultimately agreed to Cynthia’s recommendation: a full renovation.

But there was a catch: Purchased in September, the client needed the 4,500-square-foot home finished by May. This left Cynthia’s studio a grand total of nine months to complete a project that would normally take two years.

The tight timeline encouraged Cynthia to draw from her own archive. 'We went to my fan-favorite board, things we haven't been able to use in projects yet,' she says. It was almost as if she invited her client into her studio’s closet and asked her to try everything out for size – and plenty of items were a perfect fit.

The real shortcut, however, was that the bones were strong. The home was designed over two decades ago by Richard Wengle, a prolific and celebrated Toronto architect, and Cynthia didn’t need to chop up the layout or remove any walls. In the center-hall plan, the front door opens to a long corridor straight to the back of the house, with rooms branching off either side.

The entryway is thus a slightly restrained anchor to the colorful, maximalist rooms on either side of the corridor. Details like checkerboard marble floors and black wainscoting create a classic framework for Imogen Heath’s quietly expressive Sarah wallpaper, an airy pattern of tonal grey brushstrokes against a neutral background.

To the right of the foyer, through steel-and-glass doors, the matriarch’s home office immediately sets an unapologetically bold tone. Living with a husband and two teenage boys, the client was hesitant to make such a statement. 'She kept saying, 'I can't have this pink room at the beginning of the house – I have all boys,'' recalls Cynthia. 'And I said, ‘Yes, you can – you can stake your claim.’'

Leaning in, abstract Tempest wallpaper from Quercus & Co. covers the walls with illustrations of the rolling sea against a dark backdrop. The pattern is busy enough that it almost reads as a neutral, ideal for louder accents like the ceiling, lacquered in powder pink, or hot pink drapery and berry-colored upholstery.

Cynthia didn’t abandon that spirit across the hall in the living room, where light pink Murano glass sconces hang above the fireplace and rosy velvet armchairs further the palette. But the real showstopper is the dense Lee Jofa print, Elephant, that Cynthia drenches across walls and even the drapes to wrap the room in a cocoon of pattern.

With so much going on, you might even take the room’s focal point for granted. Due to local building codes, the existing wood-burning fireplace couldn’t be altered – but the surround was fair game, so long as Cynthia could engineer one to perfectly fit the opening. She ended up purchasing an antique French marble surround, but it arrived in 21 pieces like a nightmarish puzzle.

She placed a 9-1-1 call to her trusty marble and tile setters, two brothers with whom she’s worked as long as she’s been in business. 'I said, I don't care what you need – food, restaurant meals, gift certificates, whatever – we have to figure this out,' recalls Cynthia. It took all three of them a day and a half to map it out and assemble. 'They put it together, and when it was all finished and installed, I literally cried.'

Other rooms came together easily, like the adjacent dining room, where a layered look pulls together with a wall-to-wall Iksel mural from Schumacher, while an heirloom sideboard actually came from another client. 'I bought it from her and gave it a new life in a new family – I love that,' says Cynthia.

The mood shifts deeper in the house, where practical comforts define the kitchen and family room, occupying the entire back of the house. But before crossing over, Cynthia went all-out in a powder room, a real powder-keg of pattern wrapped in Vousta’s Judy Stripe wallpaper, as if you’ve entered a room dramatically draped in colorful fabric.

'I wouldn't take a risk like that in a dining room where you may sit for three hours, it may be overwhelming,' says Cynthia. 'But taking a risk in a powder room where you're in it for two or three minutes, not a big deal – it should be an experience.'

With so much going on downstairs, a reimagined staircase – which Cynthia made more minimal and stately with straight-pin banisters and a simple blue-striped runner – signals a slightly calmer energy on the second floor.

That’s not to say maximalism stops at the foot of the stairs. But there are moments of serenity, particularly in the primary suite.

Naturally, the client craved a private space where she could retreat within the home, a space more akin to a hotel suite. Cynthia embraced an altogether calmer palette, focusing on textures like a tactile wallpaper or a rich wool textile used for the drapes.

'I really love her bedroom, which everybody laughs about, because it's all neutral,' jokes Cynthia. 'We painted the coffered ceiling a really, really light shade of lavender so that there was a little bit of color and a little bit of ‘pretty’ in the room.'

Those soft touches make their way into the ensuite, where subtle details – like fluted glass on the shower screen or berry-colored tiles from Mettro Source with a crackled finish behind the vanities – add visual texture. The drapes, too, made with a technical fabric from Designers Guild designed to look like linen, adds to the elegant atmosphere with a softly diffused color. 'I love those shears so much, I bought the same fabric for my studio,' says Cynthia.

The details were more pronounced elsewhere, like the son’s bedroom, where repeating one pattern created an altogether different effect.

'It made it feel a little more modern than the living room, where we did pattern matching with the drapery and the wallpaper to create calm in a very busy pattern,' says Cynthia of the bolder, more graphic Kristy Stafford Blue Loops print used across the walls and headboard. The effect is more contemporary, adding extra energy into the space and making it more youthful.

And that playful spirit makes its way into even the most functional areas of the home, ones often forgotten entirely in the design process. 'I didn’t want it to feel dark and dingy, I wanted it to be inspirational,' says Cyntha of the windowless basement gym that she elevated with high-contrast wallpaper, injecting bold, loopy brushstrokes into the utilitarian space.

The same energy made its way to the laundry room, where she pulled a piece of art depicting sun-yellow sunglasses from her studio’s collection of art, adding a touch of whimsy. 'Now that this project has been seen, all of my clients are talking about putting art in the laundry room,' she says.

As if the timeline weren’t ambitious, the client delivered a surprise twist just months before the finish line: she’d just purchased a condo, and needed it furnished by the same deadline.

'I literally looked at her crosseyed,' says Cynthia.

But she admits she almost never says no to a client, especially one she adores. She’s still amazed her studio was able to finish the entire home within the timeline, which she credits to her contractor and a client who allowed Cynthia to push the envelope.

'When the client trusts you and the contractor is on your side, the project really is limitless, and it's empowering to be allowed to do your craft for people who truly appreciate what you do,' says Cynthia.

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