A Nature-Inspired Retreat Where Contemporary Design and Distressed Wood Flooring Live in Perfect Harmony

“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir

If you could pick any place in the world to build your dream house, where would it be? Some people might answer this question with a traditional response, such as a famous waterfront location, or an iconic vista in a well-traveled tourist town, but these south Winnipeg homeowners opted for the road less traveled when it came to choosing their setting. The homeowners consulted with Pine Creek Builders to discuss how they could transform a heavily treed site, sitting in the middle of a quiet forest, into their dream retreat.

Leave No Trace

What once began as an extensive, highly detailed new construction blueprint, now stands as a fresh, white stucco and porcelain tile exterior home framed with modern bronze and aluminum. The low-profile home proudly honors the surrounding white poplar trees with its matching color palette. As one admires the impressively sleek and simple home, the only thing that’s missing is the overhead green canopy of leaves, which are abundant from the neighboring trees that proudly stand tall encompassing the property.

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Bringing the Outdoors, In

Just how did this work of art come to be? The architects, father and son, Lloyd and Dovide of Secter Architecture + Design, knew it was important to their client to bring the outdoors in, and this basic philosophy became the whole underlying strategy of their design. They knew they had to accomplish two things: first, no matter where you stood in the home you had to feel a part of the natural surroundings; second, they wanted to maintain a clean, modern look that featured floor to ceiling glass walls.

Nature Everywhere

Secter Architecture + Design took it one step further, not only by bringing the exterior nature into the home’s interior but then every subsequent decision they made seemed to honor the great outdoors in even the most meticulous of details. Whether it was mimicking the serenity and tranquility of the forest, with a whisper-quiet furnace or quiet operation doors on their three-car garage, or incorporating natural elements, such as Carlisle Original Grade solid Walnut flooring and the branch like chandelier suspended over the dining room table, the boundary that divided outside from indoors became blurred.

The home’s interior was accented using thoughtfully blended materials: reclaimed Bird’s Eye Maple to fill the closet cabinetry, treasured whalebone carving to illuminate the family room, and reclaimed wood to top the dining table and serving areas. Even the porcelain tile and creamy white walls again mimicked the tree bark, while our custom prefinished Walnut flooring mirrored a forest’s floor. And of course, if that wasn’t enough, the floor to ceiling glass panels made it seem as if you could jump out into the encompassing landscape of vivid greenery and magnificently towering trees in the blink of an eye.

Get the Look with Carlisle American Walnut Flooring

This project features our Walnut hardwood flooring, with 6”, 8” and 10” random widths that was accentuated with our Watermill texture and prefinished with our clear matte finish for its low sheen. The homeowners opted against covering this naturally beautiful high end wood flooring with a stain and instead allowed its inherent beauty to shine throughout the expansive home.

At Carlisle, we begin by air, and kiln drying, all our raw Walnut timber, which minimizes the heavy contrast in color between the heart and sap wood to provide an overall more consistent color tone. Once the raw timber hits the hands of our craftsmen the real work begins. They use their well-trained eyes to precisely and thoughtfully mill each board one at a time. Every plank that gets installed to our clients’ subfloors has been handled by at least twenty pairs of hands and has been painstakingly scrutinized to make sure we are highlighting the beauty in every board. Through the combination of selectively harvested timbers and thoughtfully milled hardwood floors, we pride ourselves on handcrafting a final extraordinary, custom American Walnut floor that is reminiscent of a good cup of coffee and cream, versus a mismatched patchwork of startling contrasted, light and dark browns as seen in commodity floors.

 The magnificence of this luxury wood flooring was elevated a touch further with our custom watermill texture. Made to replicate a centuries’ old process, where older floors were originally rough sawn using riverside watermills, and the saw marks were gracefully aged with years of foot traffic, this texture authentically replicates historic looking durable wood floors.  With our custom texture capabilities, our clients can experience the look and feel of distressed wood flooring without compromising on stability or performance.

And as a bonus, clients can feel good investing in Carlisle quality wood floors too. Instead of clear-cutting entire forests, Carlisle has partnered with some of the same original sawyers it did over fifty years ago. These sawyers harvest only the oldest, tallest trees, grown in specific Northern grown regions that promote tighter growth rings in the log, and therefore, stronger, more stable custom wood floors that are less likely to move in their new environments.

Living in Harmony

Every room in this home pays homage to the great outdoors through its blend of a well-designed layout, meticulously selected elements, the outpouring of natural light, and its curated finishing touches. The precise execution of this talented team of professionals pulled it all together for a final space that feels as if you planted your sitting chair amidst the poplar trees and greenery. There is no such thing as “cabin fever” in this home. There is only a harmonious space.

As featured in Style Manitoba Winter 2017 [https://www.stylemanitoba.co/?project=style-manitoba-winter-2017] this custom home was strategically constructed with the help of Pine Creek Homes builder [https://pinecreek.ca/] and Secter Architecture + Design.