In Toronto’s land of grey-and-beige, she brings the colour. Pop!

Cynthia Ferguson is something of a maverick in Toronto, which she calls “the land of grey and beige.” The interior designer is a passionate promoter of vibrant colour and bold patterns to uplift a living space. Her own front door opens to a who’s hue of bland-busters, from the foyer wallpaper of blue monkeys perched among orange kumquats to the hot-pink ceiling that crowns the living room.
Hers is a maximalist’s showplace, a curated space of striking shades, motifs and textures. It “speaks to all the senses,” says the founder of Cynthia Ferguson Designs. “It’s about the mix of all of it that makes it really special.”
But special doesn’t happen overnight. After buying the two-storey house in 2000, Ferguson waited 20 years to renovate the dysfunctional kitchen and do a total refresh of paint, wallpaper, flooring and furniture.
“I would come home every evening, and my home was uninspired, tired, and nothing made me happy,” she recalls. “It needed some love and effort.”
But she waited until she had the budget (“a real dream killer”) to do it “just the way I wanted it … with wild abandon.”
She was finally ready to go full bore in 2020.
While she’d made small improvements years earlier — she removed pink shag carpet — she planned to give the entire main floor the full treatment.
By retaining the original floor plan in the 1929 house, she provided more wall space for artwork while allowing each room to shine as its own “jewel box,” she says. The common thread linking each space is blue of various hues, “sometimes taking centre stage, or quieter and more subtle.”
The small eight-by-10-foot kitchen, which was done in white and dark blue, was given more storage space through covering a window with cabinetry and adding open shelving.
Meals are eaten in the dining room, where built-in blue cabinetry and shelves, backed with flamingo pink, flank a big floral painting.
“It’s the interplay of two colours that makes things sing for me,” she explains.
In one go, the main floor’s old hardwood strip flooring was replaced with wider oak planks throughout, making it a costly upgrade, Ferguson says.
Wow-worthy rooms are created by combining colours, large and small patterns, textures from fabrics and wallcoverings, and by balancing scale and structure, according to Ferguson.
One favourite space, highlighted on her Instagram account, is the corner of her family room, where a comfy armchair keeps company with built-ins, painted pickle green, and walls of woven grasscloth in shades of green and blue.
Ferguson, who started her design business in 2000, has watched colour enjoy a “phenomenal comeback” in recent years, although it still has room to grow. But she acknowledges that her brand of boldness, exemplified by her dramatic black-walled bedroom, isn’t everyone’s cup of paint.
Attracted by her many-splendoured palette, Ferguson’s clients, however, want her style of “joyful, happy interiors,” she says.
Ferguson is no fan of “instant rooms” sold by big box stores. A collector of art and antiques, she favours “found treasures” that once belonged to an older generation.
Good design is all about the story behind each piece: where it came from, its personal significance and the memories it evokes, she says.
“The layers of stories are what bring soul to a room.”
The designer, who counts natural wood antiques among her cherished objects, tut-tuts about the current “obsession with refinishing everything.” Far better to embrace the imperfections of a genuine antique. But vintage pieces that have integrity and structure can be refinished or painted. Ferguson mentions a 1950s faux bamboo night table as an example.
She believes her own space reveals “that comfort and a sense of welcome are important (to her), and joy and whimsy are paramount in my life.
“I have fallen in love with my home again,” Ferguson declares. “Every day I arrive home, it feels done, and makes me feel happy and settled.”
Her two sons, aged 23 and 25, have returned to the nest from distant universities, which is “the icing on the cake.”