Keeping your home light and airy

No, no. Leave your shoes on! insists Elisabeth de Ruiter as you arrive at the threshold of her home. This, despite the fact that at first glance anyway, her airy apartment is awash in white and soft pastel paint, including – most noticeably and effectively – its painted white and lime green floorboards. It certainly looks like a no-shoe zone. But the fact that de Ruiter is unconcerned about scuffs and marks is typical of her casual approach to her home's interior, not to mention her love of surfaces that are faded and worn. “I just think everything looks more intriguing with a patina. You know it has a history,” she says. “I love old paint and worn fabrics.”

Clearly, the apartment's time-worn surfaces aren't merely for effect; they aren't the result of some popularized paint technique designed to impart instant age. De Ruiter has lived in the apartment for 27 years, since the time she was introduced to the handsome co-op in the heart of Toronto. With its central location, park views and heavily treed surroundings, the space intrigued de Ruiter, who was just then embarking on what would become a successful career in real estate. Though her original interest was purely professional – she attempted to find buyers for a friend planning to convert the 1920s building into a co-op – she eventually put her own name on one of the airy, spacious second-storey apartments. “I just thought, ‘I'll buy it, paint it, live in it and sell it,'” recalls the native of Holland. “I didn't have any great plans for it.”

But while the apartment had its fair share of inherent charm, which de Ruiter was determined to preserve, it was in need of work. So instead of the quick slick of paint she first envisioned for the dingy walls, she found herself fixing up both the bathroom and the kitchen, replacing the cabinets and floors, and overhauling the plumbing and wiring. De Ruiter decided that the kitchen needed a light, fresh, country approach and so installed some new white cabinets, countertops and appliances. In the bathroom, she enhanced the original decor, replacing some of the fixtures with period-appropriate ones, then installing a large mirror on one wall and wiring in a a tole-work sconce.