LOVE LIVES HERE

There’s always a beautiful dual intention that goes into designing a space: finding that sweet spot between the way you actually live and the way you want to live. And multi-hyphenate Jackie Kai Ellis—author, TV and podcast host, entrepreneur, pastry chef, creative woman-about-town, etc., etc.,—walks the tightrope between aspiration and actuality with impeccable style in her South Granville heritage home.

But before her now-15-monthold son Kai came along, Ellis and her husband Joe Chan were happily living in a very different space downtown. “I had imagined this life with my husband where we were going to be this fabulous cosmopolitan couple. I demolished the walls so we could just have a big dining space for entertaining, and everything was all black and hardwood and concrete,” says Ellis. “And then just a few weeks after our wedding it was, like, ooh, I think I’m pregnant.”

And when their little family expanded and they needed to rethink the number of sharp objects and low-hanging accessories in their decor (“The tables were just covered in books and knitting needles,” laughs Ellis), her eye turned toward a new vision for the future—one with this English cottage-inspired kitchen at the centre: “I think, ‘What do I want my Tuesdays to look like in five years?’ and design for that.” That meant freshly painted Clark and Kensington Cottage White shaker cabinets that practically glow in the warm morning sun, a hard-wearing marble countertop that will patina beautifully over time and a whimsical animal-print wallpaper that’s sure to inspire a million stories when little Kai is older.

One more example: instead of replacing the kitchen window seat with more storage (the usual move in a Vancouver home), Ellis installed a reading lamp above the cozy nook. “I just kept on imagining: what will Kai’s life look like? I want him to get a book and sit here; I want to have mornings having coffee while he’s telling me something,” she says. “It’s all these tiny little things.”

—Stacey McLachlan

All Lit Up

“The lights above the island are from Huey, a company in Toronto. They’re ceramic, and the inside is glazed.”

“ Itsumo (279 E 6th Ave., itsumo.ca) is amazing. It’s a Japaneseowned store; the owner curates all these amazing little Japanese things—clothes, housewares. It’s one of the most beautiful stores I’ve ever been in.”

Marble-ous Materials

“The marble countertop is from Jade Marble in Richmond. The island here is open to the family room—it’s the perfect place to entertain and create a real home for my new family. (It’s also great for dramatic arrangements.) The marble sink is a find from an Etsy shop in Turkey called AegeanMarble.”

Stylish Stools

“The bar stools came from an Etsy shop that has since closed, but what’s strange is that they mysteriously arrived one at a time through the mail.”

Simple and Chic

“Sometimes this Cadine bowl is full of fruit, other times, a planted flower arrangement. My favourite mugs are from Cadine, too.”