Playful Wallpaper and Hollywood Glam

A family home in Saskatoon gets a glamorous update with touches of gold in all the right places.

First published in 2011.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 places back to their original glory.So when the couple bought their lakeview house 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.Dated wallpaper was replaced with mod updates: a wintery “Woods” from Cole & 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 the 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 used it throughout the house.”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 like oversize tropical flowers grace the white walls. 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. OFFICE: The zebra rug in the comfy office—painted in rich black paint from Benjamin Moore—is actually a cowhide, stamped with a funky print.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 fun while she’s doing it. “It’s a rewarding challenge to renovate a dated home,” she says. After all, she can experiment on her own home in ways that most clients (more’s the pity) would never allow. ENTRANCE: A Jonathan Adler ceramic greyhound statue adds a touch of whimsy to the entrance, where a teak root table and 18Karat vase provide an elegant focal point. OFFICE: Bucking convention, Foord opted to paint the wall panels in reverse: Oxford white for the trim, rich black on the walls. The yellow lamp adds a surprising pop of colour in the graphic room. MASTER BEDROOM: “Imperial Trellis,” a Kelly Wearstler-designed wallpaper, provides a playful backdrop to an oversize, charcoal bed from Silva outfitted with linens from 18Karat.