City Homes
Designer Lyndsay Jacobs’ Home Masters The Mix With Vintage Finds, Heirlooms And Original Art
Updated on April 11, 2025
If the walls (and furniture) in designer Lyndsay Jacobs’ home could talk, they’d speak volumes. “My dad’s a collector, so I grew up looking for things of a certain vintage or with a sense of history.” In fact, it was the home’s circa-1878 brick façade that first drew her to the property in 2018. “It reminded me of a New York City–style loft in the middle of Toronto.”
The interiors, however, weren’t as compelling. After purchasing the property with partner Frank Turzanski and moving in with their two rescue pups, Quinn and Brando, the designer began planning a full gut renovation. “The entry was crammed, the basement had low ceilings and there was an old addition on the back that you could push over with your pinkie finger,” she says with a laugh. Lyndsay’s vision involved shifting the staircase to the middle of the house, underpinning the basement and replacing the old addition with a new one that would bump out the kitchen. The 16-month-long project started at the end of 2021 and was complete by March 2023.
A trip to Greece set the tone for the 2,600-square-foot interiors, which have a Mediterranean feel, with walls painted in Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore, natural stone elements and a neutral palette of browns and reds. To align with the house’s heritage, Lyndsay installed 10-inch baseboards, restored the stained glass windows and chose raw and honed materials with a sense of age. “We wanted to honour the history of the house,” says Lyndsay. “I had my tile installer bang up the floor tile in the front entry so it didn’t look so new!”
For personality, Lyndsay filled rooms with tokens from her travels and original paintings and sculptural art pieces that nod to the places she’s visited. “The house is a real reflection of who we are,” says Lyndsay. “And the kitchen is one of my favourite places. In the morning, when the sunlight streams through the doors, you don’t even need to turn on the lights to have your coffee. It feels so serene.”
See inside Lyndsay Jacobs’ vintage, European-inspired home below.
“I love a home that reflects who I am, where I’ve been and the story I want to tell,” says Lyndsay, referring to the vintage, inherited, collected and handmade items scattered throughout her home in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.
When the front door couldn’t be saved, Lyndsay made a custom copy. Checkered floors and the original stained glass transom window complete the old world look.
Lyndsay used three painted ceramic planters as legs topped with a piece of marble to make the living room coffee table. The juju hat over the fireplace is another handmade piece.
A newly upholstered sofa scored from Kijiji, vintage chairs and objets from the couple’s travels give the living room a layered look. Salvaged stained glass from the original house adds to the heritage feel.
“The kitchen has lots of European influences, from the natural materials to the dark cabinets and the architectural details on the windows.” The honed Calacatta Nero Borghini marble counters and backsplash are striking against the soft black cabinets and limestone travertine floor. “The stone has pinks, greens and blues in it,” says Lyndsay. “That was the jumping-off point for the kitchen design.”
The Nuvolato travertine floor was designed by Lyndsay and her tile installer, who sourced the tile from his family business in Greece.
A wall of millwork houses a coffee station and TV that can be concealed behind pocket doors. The cabinet colour, Farrow & Ball’s Black Blue, was pulled from the dark hues in the backsplash.
The eclectic dining room features a Serge Mouille ceiling fixture and a dining table from Lyndsay’s previous home.
The Red Alicante marble vanity in the powder room was made with a scrap from Lyndsay’s fabricator. “It went from a scrap sitting out in the parking lot to a functional piece,” she says.
A console at the foot of the stairs is styled with art, wood accents and woven storage.
The sculptural staircase in the heart of the home has a Venetian-plaster look. Lyndsay wanted the new stairs to be the focal point and divide the older part of the house from the new addition. “I fell in love with the moulded plaster staircases you see in Europe,” she says. The ideal design would have been a ribbon staircase that ran from the second floor down to the basement, but the quote came back way over budget. So, she found a compromise: from drywall, architect Nicholas Discenza designed a sculptural masterpiece with rounded edges and a maple-capped handrail. “Most people think the staircase is plaster,” says Lyndsay. “We were able to maintain the vision.”
Arched windows in the ensuite create a lovely sight line from the principal bedroom. The upper level (and the kitchen) have a more transitional feel, nodding to the couple’s years spent in industrial-style hard lofts. “We skipped the baseboards and crown moulding upstairs and finished the spaces with simple drywall window returns,” says Lyndsay. “It felt appropriate yet fresh.”
Personal touches such as Lyndsay’s art over the bed and the nightstand she made from leftover travertine make the principal bedroom feel special.
Lauren Miller
Lyndsay Jacobs (interior design), Nicholas Discenza (architecture)