Given Carte Blanche, Two Designers Added a Massive Teal Cube to This 125-Year-Old Ontario Home

Hamish Robertson and Mary Fitzgerald didn’t want to move, but it looked inevitable. As much as the couple, who work as a software engineer and a server respectively, loved their neighborhood in Almonte, Ontario, their circa-1890 Victorian home was bursting at the seams as their two small, busy kids grew. But then, it occurred to them that their lot was large, and the footprint of the house took up just a fraction of the property; the conditions were ideal for an expansion. Maybe they could have it all—a larger home, the same address.

They’d need some help to make the plan a reality. Mary had purchased some of artist Kate Dubois’s prints years ago, and had been following her career from a distance. When she learned that Dubois had started a design studio (with cofounder Xenia Rose) in Ottawa, Ontario, she reached out: Would Studio Alter take them on as one of their first clients?

"We went to them to make the house something we could actually live in," says Hamish. Dubois and Rose were happy to oblige. They started sketching a plan to restore the 900-square-foot ground floor of the two-story house, rejig the layout for maximum functionality, and introduce a second full bathroom and an additional 480 square feet. (A renovation for the upper level is on the docket in the future.)

Though many new designers might be tempted to play it safe as they build their portfolios, Dubois and Rose took the opposite approach. "These clients were an opportunity to do something bold," says Rose. They weren’t looking for anything traditional, and didn’t feel beholden by the heritage of their 125-year-old house. "This was the time to push," she recalls.