In our final “On Location” episode in our recently completed case study house, we are looking at the sunken courtyard located on the basement level. This courtyard allows floor to ceiling windows at the basement level and allows lots of natural light into what would otherwise be a subterranean space.


A key design consideration with any sunken courtyard is drainage. In this location we have three primary drainage details. The first is a large trench drain located in the center of the courtyard connected to an oversized sump pump to collect and discharge any rain water. The second detail is a twelve inch gravel perimeter all around the courtyard base to allow any rainwater to percolate into the ground rather than pool against the house. The third detail is the use of landscape pavers as opposed to a poured concrete surface because pavers. Pavers allow some water to pass through them at the joints, as opposed to a poured slab which will deflect all of runoff.


Today’s Slides:

In our recently completed case study house, there are two interesting accent lighting details that we would like to share with everyone. The first is a new, low profile LED light designed specifically for millwork applications. In this house, we have used this LED light in a display niche and a shelving unit to light the objects that will be placed there. The nice thing about this LED light is that it is extremely low profile, it fits within a 1″ shelf depth and it does not emit any heat so there is no concern about ventilation requirements or heat damage that can be issues with halogen puck lights.


The second accent lighting element is a rope lighting detail in a cove ceiling that we created in the kitchen. We made a shallow depth drywall return on two sides of the kitchen ceiling and installed a long section of rope lighting. Rope lighting has been around for a very long time and is an excellent and inexpensive way to create a soft mood light along a linear plane like a ceiling cove, under a wall shelf or along a millwork edge.


Today’s Slides:

In the lower level of our recently completed case study house, we had to compose a wall to house a see through fireplace, a large TV and the media components. One side of this wall faces our media room and the other side faces the guest room.


We decided to create a composition on the media wall side using a limestone tile and drywall. We set the see-through fireplace down and to left of the TV. The TV has been placed so it is centered in the media room, but off set in the overall composition. We tucked the media components into a tall, thin cabinet around the corner from the TV and fireplace to minimize the detailing on the face of the wall. Around the corner in the guest room, the see through fireplace is more simply detailed with a drywall return making the limestone tile look set into the thickness of the wall.


Today’s Slides:

For the exterior guards off the front deck of our recently completed case study house, we have used frameless glass panels secured by a row bottom mounted stand-off posts. This detail maximizes the view because there are no intermediate posts nor are there any top rails that will obscure the sight lines.


The panels are made out of laminated glass, which simply means that there are two thinner pieces of glass with a clear plastic film in between them to give them added strength. They have been detailed to extend past the edge of the deck and are mounted to the deck structure at the bottom using a series of round fasteners. These fasteners are installed into structural blocking which has been put into place behind the cedar finish of the deck edge.


There is an intentional gap of space left between the glass panels as well as space between the fasteners, the glass and the edge of the deck. This makes cleaning easier because it allows any rain, snow or debris to pass and not get trapped between the panels and the edge of the deck.


Today’s Slides:

In our recently completed case study house, we had to come up with an innovative way to detail the floor and wall tile in the en-suite shower because we had a lot of surface area to cover within a limited budget. What we decided to do is use two types of tile, a more expensive limestone tile on the floor and one wall of the shower and more cost effective subway tile on the the other surfaces. The subway tile covers the majority of the surfaces and therefore helps with the overall cost of the tile.


We also paid careful attention to how we ended the wall tile outside of the shower itself. By extending the framing on both sides of the shower door, we were able to create a drywall return that provided a natural place for the wall tile to end. It is always ideal to have wall tile end on an inside corner, and by creating these stopping points in the drywall, we are able to limit the amount of wall surface that needs to be tile – therefore reducing the overall cost.


Today’s Slides:

Today we are looking at how the HRV unit is installed in our newly completed case study house. The HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) is a piece of mechanical equipment that is mounted to the ceiling of the mechanical room. It’s functions as an air exchanger where the warm the exhaust air from the furnace is passed by the cool incoming air from the outside and thus pre-heats the outside air – this reduces the amount of heating demand placed on the furnace. It is also connected to the furnace and to vents located in each of the bathrooms in this house. This type of installation is known as an active HRV which serves to circulate fresh air through out the house and air exchange in the bathrooms.


In each of the bathrooms there is a round, six inch duct located high on the wall that serves to circulate the air from the HRV. There is also a fan control in each bathroom which sets the speed of the air flow in each space. Not to be confused with an electrical bathroom fan, which simply exhausts the air in the bathroom directly to the outside, the HRV actually provides incoming air.


Today’s Slides:



















From the Archives: How HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilators) Work

In our recently completed case study house, we have used a see through fireplace as the spatial division between the living and dining rooms. We wanted it to read as a monolithic object and therefore we have clad the entire floor to ceiling volume in a 12 inch by 24 inch limestone tile. To maximize the sizes of the tiles used and minimize the grout lines, we have had to set the height and location of the fireplace unit itself based on the dimension and proportion of the tile.


The first critical decision was to set the height of the unit so the top of the unit lined up with a tile joint. Then we made the surround itself the width of two full tiles and carried these up to the ceiling. The hearth and mantle details had to be consistent around the corners, so we increased the number of tile joints on these small pieces so all of the joints lined up properly on all the sides.




Today’s Slides:

Our case study house has two islands in the kitchen – each one has been detailed slightly differently. Today, we are looking specifically at how the legs of the island have been put together.


The first island has a raised leg detail. The intention is to make the island look more like a table. The legs are on the corners of this island and are 3 inches by 3 inches square and sit proud of the adjacent drawers and gable ends by about one inch. The leg detail is further emphasized by the toe kick, which is recessed and has been detailed in a different finish from the island itself.




The second island includes an overhang for counter stools. On this island, the leg is wider to accommodate a bank of electrical switches and it is only raised off the adjacent cabinet fronts by half an inch. It is connected to a three inch deep “stretcher” rail which acts as a structural support for the overhang of the stone top. Without this stretcher, the stone would not have the strength it needs to support the weight of the overhang required for the stools.


Today’s Slides:

A kitchen island is a great feature to have in your home, but for some people, there is a concern that the inevitable mess around the kitchen sink will be visible from other rooms in the house. In our recently completed case study house, the open plan kitchen is located adjacent to both the living and dining rooms and the clients were concerned about views towards the kitchen sink.


To deal with this issue, we decided to design a millwork storage unit that was part book shelf for the living room and part buffet storage for the dining room. We positioned the unit six inches off the floor to make it look like it is attached to the back of the island. We detailed the top of it to be about 12 inches higher than the kitchen counter. This millwork unit conceals any direct sight line from the living or dining spaces towards the sink while still maintaining an open concept feeling. On the kitchen side, the back of the unit houses the counter receptacles and a space to tuck in some small kitchen accessories or utensils.


Today’s Slides:

Our wet bar is located just to the side of the kitchen in our case study house. There is a large side yard window located above the wet bar that we wanted to incorporate into the overall design of the wet bar cabinetry. To do this, we created an upper cabinet for glass and bottle storage that also becomes the trim of this side yard window. We thickened and extended the gables of the upper cabinet to surround the window above on three sides. The top of the cabinet then becomes a place for display and the header of the window houses an LED accent light. We carried our ceiling to cabinet reveal detail along the top of the window header to minimize the appearance of any uneven ceiling drywall.


For the backsplash, we simply used another piece of our quartz countertop to make it appear like the counter folds up and wraps up to the upper cabinet. This minimizes the number of materials used in this relatively small area and keeps everything looking clean and simple.


Today’s Slides:

We like to detail our front entry closets like pieces of millwork as opposed to just passage doors with standard trim. In our case study house, we have created a millwork composition with the front entry closet that merges the trim and closet doors and includes an off-set display niche.


The closet opening is drywalled in a standard way, but to make it look like millwork, we have used 3/4 inch lacquered cabinet door material – the same that we would use for millwork – and have installed the doors using standard cabinet hinges. It is important to use a lot of cabinet hinges to support the weight of the doors and mount the them forward in the frame so when closed, the doors are flush with the exterior trim. We have also used millwork bar pull handles instead of a more normative door handle.


The final details involve the trim. In this case we have extended the trim around the corner to make the front closet appear to be a millwork unit that is slid into the drywall. We have also extended the trim to the left of the door to encase a vertical display niche in a contrasting wood material.


Today’s Slides:

The open riser stair in our newly completed Housebrand house has a carpet inlay on each tread as well as a carpeted landing which requires some specific attention to all the connection details.


First, at the top of the stairs, a custom wood nosing has been installed across the entire top of the last riser. This provides a clean edge for the upper floor carpet to terminate against without having to have the carpet wrap over the nosing. The nosing extends about an inch past a solid wood trim board which has been installed to cover what would normally be left as exposed drywall – which is not a very durable surface for a stair riser.


Second, the carpet inlay itself is detailed like an upside down wood tray, with the carpet set flush into the tread and bound on all four sides by a 1.5 inch wood trim. This allows the visual continuity of the wood finish on the under side of each step when looking at the open riser stair from the side or from below.


Finally, the landing is detailed similarly to the tile inlay at the front entry with a hardwood picture frame edge providing a clean way to transition to carpet on all four sides.


Today’s Slides:

For durability reasons, it is a good idea to detail a resilient flooring at your front door. One elegant solution is to create a tile inlay because it visually allows the hardwood to flow through to the entry while simultaneously providing the durability of a floor mat.


An inlay simply means that the tile surface is set into the hardwood as opposed to having tile laid wall to wall. There are three critical details to take into account if you are considering a tile inlay in your home: the first is to “picture frame” the hardwood around the tile inlay, the second is to reinforce the joint between the hardwood and the tile using a metal edge and not rely on the strength of the tile grout and the third is to extend the tile all the way to the sill of the front door so to avoid any chance of direct foot to floor contact with the hardwood at the threshold.


Today’s Slides:

In today’s episode, we are reviewing the floor plans of our recently completed Housebrand house that will be featured throughout the month of February for our “on location” segments.


This three storey, 3,000 square foot home features a sunken courtyard on the lower level and a main floor terrace off the living and dining rooms taking advantage of expansive views to the west.


The plans are organized around a central service block that runs up all three floors. The service block houses the laundry and mechanical on the lower level, the kitchen pantry and guest bathroom on the main floor, and the master en-suite on the upper floor. The stairwell is unusual in that it forms an “L” shape around the outside of the service block. The living spaces on the main floor are organized around the kitchen which is located in the center of the plan and on the lower floor, a family entertainment space and guest bedroom suite face towards the west facing sunken courtyard.


Today’s Slides:

We are very excited to announce that for the month of February, Slow Home will be on location in one of our most recently completed Housebrand homes. The house, designed and built by John and Matthew, is a 3,000 square foot infill house in one of Calgary’s established inner city neighborhoods.


This house is located on a standard 50 by 125 foot lot with a rear detached double garage and has been designed to optimize its front facing west orientation. The main floor has a raised exterior terrace that faces towards the mountain views to the west. The lower level, about a half a storey below grade, has an exterior sunken courtyard to take advantage of the west afternoon light. The east facing rear yard has a large deck off the main floor family room as well as a garden.


Over the course of the month, John and Matthew will be taking you on a tour of the interior and exterior of the home looking at the overall design concept as well as zooming in on some of the most interesting technical and construction details.


Today’s Slides: