48th Avenue House
We built this custom home for a family of four. This was a demanding project thanks to a modern, open main floor with very few interior walls and a busy top floor that included three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full laundry and a home office. Mechanical systems and open floor plan modern design don’t always play nice. Lepp Construction enjoyed the challenge of finding solutions to resolve the functional demands of items like air conditioning with aesthetic priorities such as tall ceilings without drops or bulkheads. Take a look!
Achieving a seamless front entry
The front entry of the house proved challenging because the porch had to respect the living space below and still be flush to the interior. Assembling the insulation, membrane and architectural concrete to line up required planning and careful consideration with trades so that we could achieve the results you see here.
Making the front door as sturdy as its imposing height
Although front door looks like a simple painted door, it's nine feet tall and anything but. Because it's black and faces south, we didn't want it to warp, so we had a steel frame installed inside the door to make it extra thick and durable. This means our clients can count on its long-term performance.
This fireplace was a labour of love. While the concrete hearth looks elegantly minimalist, the actual fireplace unit had to be set in place and removed multiple times to get the spacing and forming perfect without damaging the unit. That was the easy part!
The white millwork above it, constructed with non-combustible materials, is completely suspended from ceiling so as to not add stress to the fireplace below. On top of all that is a recessed hidden nook for a widescreen TV and media components.
Constructing stairs for wear and tear
While the risers look like they are floating wood stairs, each tread is actually full-width plate steel with hardwood flooring sandwiched around the steel. This means they are built to last — and to look beautiful while doing so.
Lepp coordinated the floor-to-ceiling millwork with the framing carpenters, our precise drywall crew and the millworker to ensure that all details were flush and square.
In fact, we gave the millworker, Alex Goldie, the room and the space he needed to build the cabinets and walk-through oak panels and pocket door as part of the entire assembly.
Nailing down the safety details
Each kid's bedroom has one of the carpeted loft spaces that are ideal for reading, sleepovers and hanging out. The oak guard rail had to be safe yet also look nice and not clunky, while the ladder had to be strong yet not bulky. Lepp came up with the solutions: the guardrail is attached to powder-coated metal, and we designed the ladder in SketchUp so that we knew exactly where the brackets were going to be placed.
Ensuring a smooth transition
Similar to the front, the back patio has living space underneath it. Achieving the required insulation values and the building assemblies while also ensuring that the architectural concrete lay flush under the accordion doors required a serious amount of planning and sequencing.
Building a multifunctional garage
With its corrugated metal cladding and vaulted ceiling, the garage complements the house. It is built to be used as a carport, gym space or home office, depending on our clients' needs.