Interlude designs the spaces people return to. We treat a renovation the way a composer treats a rest — the deliberate quiet that gives everything around it meaning. We design for the light at 7am and the lamp at 11, for the dinner that runs an hour long and the Sunday no one gets dressed.
Our rooms have run in
Most studios open with a mood board. We open with a question: how do you want to feel when you walk in tired? Everything after — the plaster, the threshold, the way the four o'clock sun lands on the table — is drawn backward from your answer.
Before a single finish, we map how the sun crosses your rooms across a full year — solstice to solstice. Glazing, wall reflectance, and lamp warmth are specified to that path, so the house reads right at 7am and at 11pm, not only in the listing photos.
Lime plaster, oiled oak, unlacquered brass, raw linen. We specify materials that keep a record of the life lived on them — that warm under the hand and earn a patina instead of fighting one for a decade.
Acoustics sit in the brief, not the punch list. Soft ceilings, layered textile, and a measured amount of hard surface tune each space so conversation carries to the end of the table and the quiet stays quiet.
You see the real number before you commit — line by line, padded for the surprises every old building hides behind its plaster. No round-number allowances that quietly double the week the walls come open.
We work with a closed circle of trades and ateliers we've used for years — the same plasterer, the same joiner. One accountable studio, one timeline, and no finger-pointing between the contractor and the decorator.
We take a small number of projects a year so each one is drawn, not assembled. A few of the spaces we've composed — residential and hospitality, city and shore.
A narrow 1891 Victorian opened along its spine, with a limewashed stair core, reclaimed elm floors, and a kitchen that folds away behind cerused oak the moment the day is done.
A weekend retreat built out over the water, wrapped in cedar and warm plaster, with steel-framed glass that hands you the lake and a hearth sized for the off-season, not the brochure.
Eleven keys in Old Montreal — each room a short essay in linen, lime, and salvaged stone, drawn so guests feel like residents by the second morning and book again by the third.
Seventy-two square metres re-planned around the light, with full-height joinery, a study hidden behind a wall, and one long window seat that quietly does the work of three rooms.
A neighbourhood café tuned for the slow hour — soft acoustics, one long communal oak counter, and a wall of secondhand books that argue for a second cup and a longer stay.
A new house drawn to read as though it has always stood there — local clay tile, hand-troweled walls, and a kitchen garden framed through every south-facing opening.
Twelve years, measured in mornings nobody wanted to leave
We named the studio for the interval between things, and we work the same way — in measured movements, never a scramble. You always know which movement we're in and what comes next.
A paid discovery visit in your space. We measure, photograph the light through the day, and listen for the life you actually want to live there. You leave with a written brief and an honest read on scope before a dollar moves.
We draw the bones first — walls, circulation, joinery, light — then layer in finishes and furniture as a single resolved scheme, presented whole so you can feel the room standing in it before it's built.
Our trades take over while we hold the line. Weekly site walks, one point of contact, and a budget tracked in the open — so the thing that gets built is, to the millimetre, the thing we drew.
We install last and leave well — art hung, lamps placed, the table set for the first dinner. Then a return visit a season later to adjust the home around how you've actually been living in it.
“We'd owned three homes and renovated two of them badly before this. Interlude was the first studio that asked how we wanted to feel, not what we wanted to buy. Four years on, we still haven't moved a chair.”
“They turned eleven small rooms into a hotel guests describe as a feeling. Our return rate doubled the year we reopened, and the reviews talk about the light before they get to the linens.”
“I'm an architect, so I'm a difficult client. Interlude held the whole composition — the bones and the bouclé — in one voice, protected the budget to the dollar, and somehow made my own house feel like a place I'd have wanted to design.”
Every project is scoped to your space, never to a template. These are starting points — your proposal arrives with a real number and a phased timeline once we've stood in the room together.
For the room you almost have right.
Concept to keys, held end to end.
For spaces the public will love or leave.
Full Composition engagements generally start around $200K CAD in construction and furnishing combined. Below that, the Consultation or a focused furnishing commission is usually the honest fit — and we'll say so on the first call rather than the third.
A full renovation runs nine to sixteen months from first concept to install day — design and procurement up front, build and settling after. You'll have a realistic, padded timeline in writing before you sign anything.
Because a home should be drawn, not produced. A short slate means one lead designer holds every decision — from the load-bearing wall to the last lamp — instead of handing you down a chain of juniors halfway through.
Yes. Roughly a third of our work is in Prince Edward County, Muskoka, and Montreal, with the occasional hospitality project further afield. Travel and site cadence are written into the proposal up front, not billed as a surprise.
Often, and gladly. We can lead the interior alongside your existing team, or bring our own trusted trades when you'd rather have a single studio accountable for the whole result.
With a paid discovery visit. We stand in your space, measure, watch the light move, and listen — then return a tailored proposal with scope, phasing, and an honest budget. No obligation to go a step further.
One project slot opens most quarters. Send us the address, the light, and the life you want to live there — we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right studio, usually within the week.