Great Spaces: One woman’s losing battle against handprints and shoe scuffs in an all-white house

By Victoria Webster

(Images: Michael Graydon )

OK, what’s wrong with this picture: white ceilings, white walls, white mouldings, white lacquered floors and two kids under five. Robyn Scott, a 37-year-old former institutional equities trader, freely admits to being a textbook type-A personality, which may explain why she chose such a crazy-making colour scheme. When she and her husband, Steven, the owner and CEO of Access Storage, decided to gut their newly purchased Forest Hill home, her friends tried to dissuade her from the all-white crusade, but Robyn was determined. She wanted a striking backdrop for her eclectic antique furniture.

Robyn approached 10 different contractors before she found an industrial flooring company willing to take on the lacquering job. Most of them balked at the idea of covering the beautiful hardwood. Then she found Michael Pelaic of Paint-Co in Mississauga, who approached the commission as an art project. The process was gruelling: sanding, epoxy primer, more sanding, more primer, then four coats of semi-gloss epoxy coating and two coats of high-gloss polyurethane topcoat—on all three storeys. The job took three weeks to complete.

In November 2009, after a 16-month reno, they moved in. The newly lacquered floors were so shiny Robyn could see her reflection. Then winter temperatures arrived, and the brand new floors cracked; they had to have them filled and repainted. A month later, the Scotts tempted fate and hosted a raucous 37th birthday party for Steven, with dancing until 4 a.m. Some friends knew to bring slippers, but Robyn found one guest in five-inch stilettos desperately trying to rub off the scuff marks she had left. Robyn finally had to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. “There will always be scuffs and sticky palm prints on the walls,” she says. “Now I just shrug—nothing is perfect.”

Robyn enlisted Neil James from StyleGarage to design a custom glass and stainless steel table, as well as benches and bar stools covered in soft grey leather.

Two-year-old William likes to pedal his old-fashioned toy Mercedes all over the house, though his mom would prefer he kept it in the kitchen.

The kitchen island was made from a nine-foot slab of Carrara marble from Crystal Tile and Marble at Dufferin and Lawrence.

Robyn, who does not cook, says her cookbook collection consists mainly of gag gifts from friends.

The matching blue Buddha heads were a gift from Robyn’s mother, who thought the kitchen needed a shock of colour.

This 1969 soapstone head (Robyn doesn’t know who it’s supposed to be a carving of, but likes it anyway) came from Era antiques at Queen and Roncesvalles.

The photograph above the couch, “Bibliothèque de Louis,” is from Robert Polidori’s Versailles series. It used to hang in their previous home, in a room full of French antiques. The Scotts love the depth it adds to the living room.

The coffee table is a canti­levered brass piece by Karl Springer, sourced from Todd Merrill Antiques in New York. Robyn spends hours searching for antiques on 1stdibs.com; she admits to having a minor obsession with tables.

While Steven defers to his wife on most decor decisions, he had one demand: a comfortable couch. They went with a Sloan Mauran custom design—in white, of course.

The side table is a vintage piece in the style of 1970s designer Charles Hollis Jones, from Decorum on Yonge Street.

This 1970s brass sculpture is also a 1stdibs.com find.

Read more