By Stephanie Whittaker
Photography by Matthew Young
For many people, the mention of modern design elicits images of austere rooms with uncomfortable seating. Rutnaish Prihar wants to change that. The Toronto designer and principal at RP Design is creating environments she describes as “modern with warmth. Modern design has been generally considered cold and stark,” she says. “I’ve taken the stark and added warmth.” More later on how she achieves that. First, however, let’s take a side trip into how Prihar became a designer whose own home embodied the modern-warm ethos so spectacularly that it was featured in the Wall Street Journal when it was on the real estate market.
An accountant by profession, Prihar harboured a creative streak throughout her life. After she married and became a stay-at-home mother, her creativity became apparent when she and her husband had their own home built in Oakville in 2005, and she designed it in a traditional style. “That’s how it started,” Prihar says. “When we built our second home in 2011, I designed it in a transitional style. The third was modern. People would ask me if I designed homes for a living or just for us. I would draw design elements to make the home functional for our family. Our builder told me he onboarded new clients by showcasing our homes.”
Prihar launched RP Design in 2018 and began designing for clients. While sharpening her craft on her own homes, she came to realize that she loves the simplicity of modern design, which she integrated into the family’s third custom-built home. After living in it for a few years, she and her husband decided to test the market on the suggestion of a real estate agent. “We put the house on the market in 2021 and it sold in 10 days,” she says. During that time, it was featured in various upscale real estate publications, including the Wall Street Journal’s luxury real estate section. “I had built the perfect home for my family, so we were all stunned and sad when it sold so quickly.”
“WHEN I SEE A SPACE, ALL THESE IDEAS FLOW INTO MY HEAD. THEY JUST COME THROUGH THE CREATIVE SIDE OF ME. IT’S THE WAY MY BRAIN WORKS.”
After searching for a property for more than a year, the couple found a perfect building lot in Oakville in 2022 for their next home, which is currently in the planning stages. And the modern-warm look will define its design, says Prihar, adding that there are several key elements needed to create modern interiors that aren’t cold and stark. “Wood bestows warmth and texture on interiors, but ideally it’s not honey-coloured,” she says. “I used a lot of walnut when I designed our last home. It has cool undertones without the warm, honey colour.” She also used stained white oak on the floors to mimic walnut.
Another warming element is area rugs. “A lot of modern spaces don’t have rugs, or the rugs are too small,” says Prihar, who is now designing bespoke area rugs for her clients. “Rugs add warmth and ground the furnishings in a space. They allow pieces of furniture to come together cohesively. I recently designed a bedroom for clients in Forest Hill, which included a 10-by-14-foot hand-knotted rug that I designed and had made in Nepal.”
And then there’s the low-slung seating that’s popular in modern design. “This low-to-the-floor seating is not comfortable,” Prihar says. “Seating that’s higher is more inviting and comfortable.” Texture, too, is a key element, including plush fabrics for accent pillows, throws, and upholstery. “I use velvet, wool, suede, and cashmere in rich shades that complement the overall design,” she says. “I use soft fabrics for seating.”
Prihar favours a neutral palette. “In our third home, I used white on most of the walls; on the feature walls, I used a rich grey.” Artwork, she adds, is an essential element that injects colour and warmth. For instance, she enlarged a vibrant photograph she had taken of graffiti in Melbourne. “It added a jolt of colour and became an eye-catching feature in the dining room,” she says. Scale, too, is important. “If you have tiny pieces of furniture, they’ll look like specks in a large space. Ideally, your furniture needs to fill out the space to warm it up,” Prihar says. The right lighting is another key constituent. “I make sure there are pendant lights and chandeliers rather than relying solely on pot lights,” she says. “If you’re using LED lights, they should cast a warm white glow, not a cold, bluish colour.”
Layering materials, colours, and textures creates visual interest and depth: “A rug on hardwood flooring, accent pillows and throws on furniture, extra pillows and a throw on soft sateen bedding are just a couple of examples,” Prihar says. She is intuitive about designing physical spaces. “When I see a space, all these ideas flow into my head,” she says. “They just come through the creative side of me. It’s the way my brain works.”
