Kimberley Homes X Jamie Banfield Design
Early in 2020 we began planning our second Kimberley Homes show home in the Jensen Lakes community of St Albert. With inspiration taken from our recent expansion into Kelowna B.C and the way homes are designed to capture lake views; our in-house drafting team created a floor plan unlike any show home built by Kimberley before. We knew that a home this special and unique warranted an expert collaboration to help bring our lake-side living vision to life. Enter award-winning design team, Jamie Banfield Design (JBD). Based in Port Moody BC, Jamie and his team “specialize in creating timeless, well-edited and functional family homes all over Canada that epitomize the lifestyle of the families who call them home”. The Kimberley Homes X Jamie Banfield collaboration was born with the desire to bring the JBD team’s signature West Coast flare to our beach side St Albert home.
We sat down with Jamie and his team to get their expert tips when it comes to interior design.
Our clients can sometimes feel overwhelmed at the thought of picking all their interior selections. Where do you start when you are coming up with a concept?
When looking for inspiration connect with how you want to feel in the space and the things that make you happy. If you have a favourite local coffee shop, restaurant, or even a vacation spot, understand how those experiences and places make you feel. It might be that you enjoy sipping your java on a large harvest table surrounded by simple décor, textures and colours. You may love the warmth, quality conversation, and artisan feel of the spot, all of which can be used for inspiration for your kitchen project. When building a concept always connect back to those words and feelings of inspiration as you pull all the pieces together.
We recently completed a renovation project for a homeowner who had moved into a dated bungalow that needed an update. While the reason for her move was to downsize, after a few conversations with the homeowner it became clear that the home represented her transition into becoming a grandmother. When asked how she wanted the home to feel she had warm, cozy, and durable top of mind as she pictured the grandkids lined up along the large island, all the family gatherings at grandma’s, car toys racing over cabinet fronts, and washing babies, dogs, and gardening tools in the kitchen sink. None of these actives were at the forefront when initially chatting design and style, but pulling out these situations created design must-haves like a large island, durable cabinets that could withstand jammy fingers and hot wheels, a farm house kitchen sink that is bomb proof, and a space to call a dining room for the whole family to hangout in.
What areas are smart to splurge? Where can you get away with cutting back on costs?
Areas where we will splurge on design are places that you touch every single day. Things like the kitchen faucet, the front door hardware, the family room sofa and flooring all become well used over time in the home.
We tend to find budget conscious options for anything that showcases personality and might not pass the test of time such as an area rug, decorative hardware, or a fun pop of colour for your laundry room backsplash.
What trends do you love right now?
A few trends we cannot get enough of these days are terrazzo materials, a pastel or a moody colour palette, and mixing metals. When it comes to a trend always think “is this fixture or finish a committal installation or non-committal?” Committal would be a countertop selection or flooring selection and a non-committal would be a decorative light fixture in the dining room or feature paint colour on your Den’s ceiling.
What can you never have enough of in a design concept?
When building a concept, you can’t have enough inspiration images. Start with way too many and spread them out. Look at the common threads running thought the inspiration. It might be a colour palette, a metal finish or a cabinet colour that keeps connecting through. Like a good purge narrow these images down to find your concept.
How can you refresh your old furniture to fit in with your new home?
We love mixing new and old. The key to layering in odd vintage and new modern pieces is scale and pairing. If you are bringing in large vintage pieces like a sofa, weigh it out with the same scale – a large piece of modern art. Don’t be scared of mixing shapes of legs, woods, metals, and textures. But they all need to have a common thread and be relatives to each other. We always sick to warm or cool tones. When mixing metals keep brass, gold, and nickel finishes together for a warm palette and stay way form the cool palette such as chrome or stainless steel. This will give an overall curated and layered feel to the space while mixing new and old.
What was your favourite project you ever worked on?
Ah… We have been asked this a few times. One of our favourite projects was a very small project. We were asked by a home owner to figure out how to use a den, a room off the front entrance, as she has no idea how to make the space fit with the rest of her home or how this space should be used. The homeowner toured us through her house on the first meeting and chatted about her daughter, her family, the art she makes and pieces that were important to her. We created a concept and came up with a space her daughter could practice the piano, mum and dad could hang out if needed and a place to showcase all these amazing treasures and finds from over the years in this moody den space.
Do you have advice/tips for couples who don’t agree on interior finishing?
Yes, working on someone’s home can bring lots of emotion and working on my mother and father’s kitchen renovation was not short of the emotion. Remove the emotion. When selecting style, finishes or where one should invest, you need to cut out all the emotion and make decisions based on logic, always coming back to the why behind the project.
Stay tuned as we reveal sneak peeks of our Kimberley Homes X Jamie Banfield show home and more collaborative projects with JBD!