Hillside Haven

I have completed three high-end, successful and significant residential renovations with Lara Ellenwood during the past 11 years.  Lara is a uniquely talented Interior Designer. She is a pleasure to work with - quiet, thoughtful, pleasant and sensitive. She is very well trained, professional and highly organized. I met her initially as a client of Ledingham Design, where she handled their interior design. She excels in design and in liaising with suppliers and trades whom she knows well and who hold her in very high regard.  I understand why! She is more than willing to listen to her clients and their personal needs, and bend her choices in their direction. Additionally, she enriches their choices, adds new ideas, presents fine concept sketches, then detailed plans, and absolutely aces the colour palette after the required contemplation work. She then supervises the actualization process from beginning to end, has the best resources at her disposal, and brings together all the disparate elements together, successfully.  Whoever you are, you are fortunate to be able to consider working with her.

Over 8 years ago, a friend of ours recommended Lara Ellenwood to help with the re-design of our newly purchased home.  Since then we have relied on Lara for her amazing design sense and style.  After talking to Lara we always know exactly what to do -- everything becomes so clear.  We have complete confidence in Lara's ability to provide us with design solutions that suit our style and budget.  She has really helped us make our house a home that we love.

"I asked Ellenwood Homes to change my kitchen / living area and turn it into an open concept situation. It looked like a fairly easy job but the walls that needed to come down were stuffed with plumbing, ducting and wiring for the whole house and no detailed drawings were available. Instead of starting a project without knowing if it would go way over my head, Marc conducted a very thorough investigation, suggested opening up part of the walls and he had the trades people who originally built the house come out to talk about what was there. I felt safe when we decided to go ahead with this. Lara is a wonderful designer, aware of tiny details and she came up with materials that I really liked. She seemed to understand exactly what I was looking for. These two people are a wonderful team, very professional and complementary to each other. And such pleasant personalities to work with. Budget and planning worked out fine, I love my new kitchen/living room and I would recommend Lara and Marc to anyone considering a renovation."

We hired Lara to help us design the kitchen of our dreams in our existing space. Lara had all the right tools to help us visualize a finished project before we got started so there were minimal hiccups in the building stage. Lara was patient with us and after many revisions we finally committed to the one design that fit our budget best and gave us more than we thought was possible. Mark and Lara's team then stepped in and created the final product which is now the cornerstone showpiece of the home and is a cook's dream, which we both happen to love doing. Thanks to Lara, Mark, Corey, Dustin and the team for creating a functional and beautiful kitchen!

I had a complete kitchen renovation done by Ellenwood Homes. Lara oversaw the design and Marc the construction. I had an idea of what I wanted, along with some pictures. Lara was able to bring together these threads and help me put together a fabulous modern kitchen. Not only did she do a lot of leg work [materials sourcing] and construction drawings, she also did construction supervision along with Marc. Lara is a very experienced designer. She was easy to work with and came up with great options and sensible solutions. My job was small, but both Marc and Lara gave it top-notch attention. I love my new kitchen! The work was very good quality and we stayed within budget. I would happily hire them again for my next project.