Meredith Heron Design Inc.

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Meredith Heron Design Inc.

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Meredith Heron Design is a full-service, interior design firm that manages the design of residential

Meredith Heron Design is a full-service, interior design firm that manages the design of residential & commercial properties across North America.

10/12/2026

Facelift or rip it out and start again?

Before we touch a kitchen, we ask: how do you use it? And sometimes... DO you use it?

A passionate cook whose kitchen sabotages dinner needs a different intervention from someone whose island is a staging area for replating food delivery.

Are we replacing a joint, or will a cosmetic nip and tuck do?

Our clients had purchased a former spec house that had already been VERY well lived in. They believed they were buying a luxury home. Closer inspection told a different story: finishes that looked the part weren't necessarily the quality you'd expect. There was considerably more upgrading needed to make it genuinely luxurious.

Which made choosing where to spend even more important.

These clients were a hybrid: someone cooks, and we discussed adding a wok burner. But that required more surgery than they felt the return justified.

The worn cabinetry needed repainting. We gave the island a French grey-blue identity, inspired by the wife's love of all things Parisian.

Out went the North Toronto pendants. In came sculptural lighting, artwork, and patterned counterstools that brought that Parisian sensibility together.

With more budget, I would have chosen a much bossier marble or quartzite for the island and repeated the slabs on the backsplash. I love a stone with something to say.

Here, lighting and stools were the better investment. The lighting becomes art. The stools swivel, wear well, and fit the space.

There's another run of cabinetry opposite the island, so clearance matters. Stools with backs?

An absolute NOPE. Not gonna happen.

Luxury isn't just how something photographs. It's how it's made, how it works, and knowing which changes will genuinely make a difference.

Know someone whose home could use our eye? We love a referral.

And if that someone is you, but you're feeling shy or worried about budget, slide into our DMs with “asking for a friend.”

We promise not to blow your cover. Let's chat about what your “friend” has in mind.

10/09/2026

We were in NYC for a rug show a couple of weekends ago and spent the Monday at the D&D Building, where this crewelwork wallpaper stopped me cold.

Yes, it would be a dusty little nightmare, but that is what compressed air canisters are for.

They paired it with a stone wallcovering, which I would not do. I’d take it fully in the opposite direction: matching bullion fringe, not braided, silkier in sheen and not too heavy, running around the room like a baseboard. Specifically in a dressing room, so the walls read less like wallpaper and more like an upholstered fabric installation.

And naturally, I’d use grosgrain ribbon or tape to create the illusion of covered fabric seams.

I am available to make this wildly luxe dressing room happen for the right person. Cashmere or alpaca/mulberry silk bespoke rug, fitted wall to wall?

We good, yeah?

10/08/2026

Once upon a time, this Queen Anne Revival house in Toronto’s Annex was an eleven-bedroom rooming house with real horror-movie energy. The basement genuinely felt like a set from *Silence of the Lambs*.

We were hired to gut it, and we did. Floors came out. Much of the roof came off. Standing at the front door, you could look down into the basement and up to the sky. It was dramatic, but it was also deliberate. We had a vision for how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

We salvaged what we could. The exterior porch railing and stair railing had once been the main staircase of the house, landing in what would become the formal dining room. Those pieces mattered. They gave us a thread back to the original house while we reworked the plan for the way people actually live now.

Walking in the front door, you arrive in a proper foyer. The formal dining room is the front room. The kitchen sits across the hall to the right, off the foyer, because in a Toronto winter it made no sense to bury it at the back of the house and make everyone trudge through room after room with groceries.

And then, just off the kitchen, there is this: the hangout. Not the formal dining room, not a breakfast nook exactly, but the place everyone inevitably drifts toward. A banquette, an oval table, a little glamour, and enough pattern and comfort to make people stay.

There are arches with heavy plaster moulding, exactly the sort of detail you expect in a Queen Anne Revival home in the Annex. We repeated that arch on the back of the custom banquette so this kitchen hangout felt as though it belonged to the house from the beginning.

After the remodel, the house was named Toronto Life’s House of the Week. Our client, visiting from Abu Dhabi, insisted on seeing it in person and bought it that day before flying home. A few weeks later, they asked if we would be interested in finishing what we started.

HELL TO THE YA.

Years later, this house feels almost like my own. We have added layers upon layers: pattern, polish, color, antiques, custom pieces, and a healthy dose of drama. It is very much the life of the party, which feels only right. There are a lot of parties here.

10/07/2026

Sometimes the best shot in a room tells only part of the story.
This bay at our Bridle Path project was a puzzle: an awkward fireplace wall opposite, a coffee station we didn’t exactly champion, and a layout that needed to work around decisions we inherited. So we focused on what we could control—proportion, balance, and a custom table we designed with our millwright to make the space feel intentional, grounded, and quietly luxe. Sometimes good design is also good editing.

Our Meredith Heron Collection - Cumulus rug in Winter Smoke is in New Zealand Wool & Mulberry Silk.

10/06/2026

This kitchen started out as someone’s dream kitchen. A big one. A grand one. But also one with a few curious choices.

There were two islands: one in the cooking zone, and one angled lazy-L situation for dining and storage. Not ideal if you want to be part of the cooking-show action, but not offensive enough to remove.

The red-and-white quartz countertop, however? Offensive. The white subway tile backsplash? Also not invited back.

We kept what was worth keeping: the black soapstone counters, because soapstone is forever chic when it’s done right. Then we replaced the red monster, carried the new counter into a slab backsplash, refreshed the cabinetry in lacquer, and gave the fireplace wall and glass cabinets a smokier, glossier, moodier blue moment.

And then there was the bulkhead over the sink: once a dust ledge for faux greenery and assorted country-kitchen chaos. We turned it into something with presence, polish, and a little Plaza Hotel marquee energy.

That’s the thing. We don’t approach kitchens like they’re just cabinet boxes and counters. We look for the plot, the tension, the value, the places to save, and the places to spend so the whole room actually becomes something.

We don’t design for “meh.” And we definitely don’t design for the next owner.

If you have a friend with a boring kitchen in desperate need of a plot twist, recommend us.

10/01/2026

Some rooms are not asking for a glow-up. They are asking for a complete rethink.

This powder room used to live elsewhere on the main floor, close to the entry but buried at the end of a utility hallway full of electrical, audio, storage, and compromise. It existed. It did not work.

I love a cosmetic transformation when the bones are right. But when the location and function are wrong, the brave move is to stop decorating around the problem.

So we moved the powder room and turned the main floor laundry into this powder room/laundry hybrid. That armoire reflected in the mirror? It hides a stackable washer and dryer plus a sink. We designed it here in Canada, along with the vanity, and shipped both to Florida because our Canadian makers could execute the curved details, inlay, and custom work beautifully. Also, buying Canadian was a massive budget value-add. The U.S. equivalent was triple the price.

The floor was inspired by a historic building the clients loved, once a theatre, with incredible 1920s geometric floors. The moment they told me about it, I knew where that reference belonged.

The mural wallpaper gives the room its hand-painted feeling, but the magic is in the handling: cornice moulding to create a proper finish point, then lacquered paper on the ceiling so the light moves.

The vanity is a freestanding oval. The armoire is furniture disguising laundry. The lighting is vintage Murano. The mirror and divider screen were designed for this room. The millwork was drawn for this room, not pulled from a catalogue and dressed up with wallpaper.

That is the difference between decorating a room and stewarding one.

And if someone you know is starting a project and quietly hoping for something no one else has, send them our way. We are not the cheapest option. We are the one you call when the room needs to be smarter, braver, and completely their own.

09/17/2026

This room used to be a home theatre, and it was very much on the small side.

The goal was not to make it feel bigger by stripping it back. That rarely works. Instead, we gave the room depth, texture, reflection, and a proper point of view.

The ceiling is wrapped in a lacquered wallpaper, the walls in a chevron wood veneer paper, and the windows in bespoke silk drapery from Italy. Underfoot is our MHC Dixie Tango rug, which brings movement and softness without overwhelming the room.

The bar behind the desk came from Mexico City, and the clients’ own artwork, layered with furniture from some of my favourite vendors, is what gives the room its soul.

It now feels spacious, but still intimate. Polished, but not precious. A real office, with a little glamour and a lot of character.

09/16/2026

We’ve been designing rugs for more than ten years now.

It began almost unseriously, with someone believing I had more talent and creative range than I quite believed of myself at the time. I knew I was creative. I did not yet know what it would take to learn rugs properly.

The construction. The dyeing. The language of pile, weave, colour, scale, and translation across cultures, workshops, and sometimes very few shared words. It has been exacting, humbling, and deeply rewarding work.

And as women in this world, our Design Lead Leila and I have learned more than a few new dance moves along the way.

When we launched Meredith Heron Collection in earnest nearly nine years ago, the goal was to offer rugs directly to designers. We still love that connection, and always will. But rugs are tactile. Designers and clients want to see them, touch them, feel the colour and construction in person.

Which is why this next chapter feels so right.

We are proud to share that Primavera Furnishings will now represent 16 Meredith Heron Collection rugs exclusively across Canada. With sizing and colour options, that means 219 possibilities, with custom and bespoke work also available.

Family business to family business, this partnership feels like home.

The collection is now live at meredithheroncollection.com
The rug the room calls for.

09/15/2026

A great room can go wrong very quickly.

Add extended height, walls of glass, stone, cabinetry, and one-note minimalism, and suddenly you don’t have grandeur. You have a big box with furniture that looks like it came from a dollhouse.

That was not the brief here.

Our job was to bring the scale back to the people living in it: to create warmth, comfort, function, and rooms within the room.

The hood became more than a practical element. It helps delineate one large volume into zones, creating a natural relationship between the kitchen, bar, dining area, and great room seating.

The ladder was designed to travel between those zones too, moving from the bar and sitting area to the kitchen, dining room, and even into the hidden pantry, serving the built-ins opposite all that glass.

To soften the harder surfaces, we designed custom leather overdoors, clad the enfilades in leather, and used upholstered hides on the doors to bring warmth, texture, and acoustic softness into the room.

And of course, a few MHC rugs ground it all.

Because a room this large still has to know how to hold people.

09/14/2026

The Deco Bar has had a truly cinematic amount of drama for such a small room.
We started with a Toronto-area plaster artist for the bar front, and that chapter went sideways fast. As the design evolved, they became determined to keep the project tied to an earlier concept, despite the client wanting something different. When we made the decision to change direction, it turned into exactly the kind of situation designers dread: less collaboration, more pressure, and an attempt to make us financially responsible for a direction they wanted to preserve, not one the client wanted to pursue. So we moved on. (But we did get our money back ... )

The next artist came through a referral, and somehow that chapter raised the stakes: endless talking, conspiracy theories, astrological charts, crypto schemes, gambling side plots, and the growing suspicion that they might be trying to move into the house. I wish I were exaggerating.

But here is the thing: this is part of custom work. Not the glossy part, not the Instagram part, but absolutely the real part. Things go sideways. Trades get weird. Materials surprise you. People overpromise. A bartender cuts citrus directly on freshly polished stone five minutes before a party and you get to watch the etching happen in real time.

And our job is to keep going. To protect the vision, solve the problem, find the next right person, and keep the client from carrying the full weight of the chaos.

After the plaster, lacquer, brass cabinetry, and wallpapered ceiling were complete, the room still felt like it was asking for one more thing. Every time I walked past it, I saw a birdcage: Miami Art Deco, garden rooms, lanais, a little boutique-hotel glamour. So we designed a custom lacquered ceiling lattice, integrated into the stepped cornice, and had it fabricated to fit the room.
That was the moment the Deco Bar became itself.

High drama, hard-won details, and a room that now feels like its own little world. Which, frankly, is often how the best spaces are born.

Address

222 Bedford Road
Toronto, ON
M5R2K9

Telephone

+14166987627

Website

http://www.meredithheron.com/

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