If you do not live in a condo yourself, chances are you know someone who does. Every time I look out my office window, down at Church and the Esplanade, I swear I see another one going up.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but they are going up with remarkable speed. And unless every developer in this city has gone completely mad, someone must be buying them. Actually, if you are to believe the marketing campaigns, everyone must be buying them. This condo is for the single woman who likes to shop, this one is designed as a series of lofts for the artist, that one is for the single man who enjoys beers with friends at The Keg.
So, it's odd that while these condos try to distinguish themselves as having their own personalities, most of them, on the inside, end up looking exactly the same.
Is there a memo that goes out once the deal closes?
Dear Resident:
Welcome to your lifestyle. We regret to inform you that you must now lose any and all semblance of individuality. You may purchase a couch, but only if it is L-shaped and in either black leather or taupe suede. Your dining table must be glass and all chairs must be overly large and covered in upholstery. Televisions are only permitted at sizes over 42”, and only if you can hang them on the wall as you might a painting, and buy one of those DVDs of logs burning in the fireplace. All art must pass the condo board; but preference goes to those who buy one oversized abstract piece. They sell replicas of originals at IKEA, next to the crepe standing lamps.
Welcome to your new home!
The Management
The style might be called “minimalist” but it ends up equating to “the same and boring.” Orwell would have a field day with this one.
A few theories on the proliferation of the above spaces. Minimalism can be cheap. IKEA, anyone? It’s an intoxicating place; as I walk the aisles I dream of my own granite kitchen teeming with little blond, Swedish children, all for $3,000 and a weekend with an L-wrench. My experience has also been that if you actually read the instructions and put it together properly, it’s of decent quality. But it says nothing of the person who may choose to buy it, of their personality, their hopes, their soul.
Or maybe people truly believe that uncluttering our spaces, removing the intricate details, can unclutter and simplify our increasingly complicated lives, more and more of which are being run by the incessant buzz of a Blackberry, its vibrate function so aggressive that it moves across that glass and iron coffee table like Hot Wheels, alerting everyone of its presence.
I recently rented a condo with a close friend from high school. We got the furniture from her parents, who had gotten it from their parents. It had been sitting in storage and her father was ecstatic to be getting rid of it. Gearing myself up for my new, urban, cocktails-and-stilettos life, I was surprised when Heather showed me the swatch that would be our couch: It had…flowers. I had to check the condo rulebook, but I was pretty sure this couch was in the “prohibited items” column.
But now that Heather caved and bought a flatscreen, the floral three-seater no longer looks like it came from grandma's. Now that the once white walls are a deep olive green, the antique mirrors seem like they belong. We have two mallards as bookends. They are odd, but I like them, and not solely because they reassure me of my own eccentricities. We bought an island for the kitchen at IKEA, but the pots and pans are a mixture of what we’ve collected throughout our university and early 20s years, and my old, cast -iron one could, even at this point, tell a thousand stories.
I still need a bookcase and dining chairs. I think I’ll check out some estate sales.
If you have antique dining room chairs that need a new home, Justine Connelly can be reached at
editor@womenspost.ca.
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