Wishing you joy, laughter, and the warmth of the season. May your home be filled with love and your heart with gratitude.

Home for the Holidays
In the spirit of giving, we’re unwrapping exclusive holiday deals just for you! Whether you’re dreaming of a new home in Toronto, Hamilton, or the GTA, PreConCentral.com has the key to your festive dreams.

Toast to New Beginnings
As we close the chapter on this year, we raise a glass to the memories made and the exciting journey ahead. Here’s to finding your dream home and creating lasting memories in 2024.

From our PreConCentral.com family to yours, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

#MerryChristmas #HomeSweetHome #christmas #christmasseason

The post Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! appeared first on Preconcentral.com | New Pre-Construction Homes & Condos for Sale from Toronto's Top Home Developers & Builders.

Cafécore: Elevate Your Home Coffee Experience

Post-pandemic, the trend of creating amenity-style spaces at home continues to thrive. For coffee enthusiasts, this translates into embracing your inner barista and crafting a home coffee bar to rival any café experience.

Pinterest reveals a staggering 1,125 percent increase in searches for “coffee bar styling,” indicating the popularity of this hot (pun intended) trend. Whether creating a grand coffee bar or utilizing an empty shelf, incorporating coffee-related items like the quintessential chalkboard sign is particularly chic, with searches for “chalk sign ideas” up by 100 percent.

Home Kitschens: Bye-Bye Traditional, Hello Kitschy Kitchens

In 2024, bid farewell to traditional white kitchens as homeowners embrace kitsch and eclecticism. Pinterest notes a 160 percent increase in searches for “eccentric kitchens,” a 75 percent rise in “kitschy kitchen” searches, and a 50 percent surge in “eclectic kitchen décor” searches.

Retro appliances, especially in bold colors, will be highly sought after. Trendsetters, keep an eye out for bright, patterned vintage kitchen accents at thrift stores. Barbie-bright pink and vivacious greens are the trending colors for kitchens.

Hot Metals: Bring on the Bling

Neutrals take a backseat in 2024 as Pinterest predicts the rise of shiny metallics like aluminum and chrome. These metals replace the subdued matte and black fixtures of previous years, contributing to the overarching maximalist vibe.

Silver tones gain traction, with increased searches for aluminum furniture and doors. This trend extends beyond home décor, with nail art searches surging by 295 percent. Expect to see metal corsets and layered silver necklaces becoming unique wall or tabletop art.

Western Gothic: A Moody Twist on Interiors

Western Gothic emerges as a captivating fusion of traditional Americana with moody, stormy colors and accents. Pinterest users are driving this trend, with searches for “vintage Americana” and the aesthetic itself up by 145 percent.

Ranch and farmhouse styles take center stage, combining woods and textured materials with dark paint tones, denim, and rich, complex patterns. This vintage-inspired trend extends to bedrooms, with searches for “western bedding ideas” skyrocketing by 310 percent. Accentuate the style with searches for “western mirror,” up by 125 percent.

The post Embrace the Future: Home Décor Trends of 2024 According to Pinterest appeared first on Preconcentral.com | New Pre-Construction Homes & Condos for Sale from Toronto's Top Home Developers & Builders.

Then came Love Park. When it opened in June, it changed everything; a corner long avoided by anyone not behind the wheel of a car is now a place of beauty, an attraction, a destination, and, yes, a locus of love.

Thanks to Waterfront Toronto, the tripartite public agency that may yet manage to save the city from itself, this orphan site has become a spot where locals and tourists gather to spend time sitting by the large heart-shaped pond, eating lunch, chatting and staring.

Designed by the brilliant Montreal landscape architect, Claude Cormier, Love Park is the last of his many contributions to Toronto. As was his wont, Cormier, who died of cancer in September, ensured that the new amenity walks a fine line between classism, corn and kitsch. All the traditional elements are present and accounted for – tables, chairs, benches, water, trees and a lawn – but the liquid Valentine of a pool will make it a pop icon, an image of the city.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. Cormier’s fabulous dog-and-bone fountain at Berczy Park has been a draw since the moment the taps were turned on back in 2017. Still, his most popular work in these parts is Sugar Beach at the foot of Jarvis St. overlooking Lake Ontario. With its pink umbrellas, white sand and candy-striped boulders, it transformed a dismal stretch of the waterfront from a forlorn industrial after-thought into something unexpectedly joyful and irresistibly sexy.

Love Park can’t boast a site on the shore of a lake, but it manages to carve out a slice of peace and quiet in the midst of the sort of traffic madness that now characterises Toronto. With Queen’s Quay to the south, Harbour St. to the north, York to the west and WaterPark Place to the east, it isn’t a place of solitude. But Cormier’s clever use of berms, planting, water and furniture creates the sense of a place apart from the chaos, confusion and craziness of local streets that are also forced to function as urban highways.

Toronto has always wanted to have it both ways; its roads must serve drivers without completely sacrificing the city. Cormier’s genius lays in his uncanny ability to deal with conditions so abrupt that one side of the street might differ totally from the other.

To accomplish this without resorting to walls, tall fences and the like takes some doing. There are no gentle approaches to Love Park; one might wander south from Union Station, for example, dodging the throngs on York St., cross busy Harbour St., and suddenly find oneself in the magical space of the new facility. Organized around a large heart-shaped pond whose raised edge, finished in red mosaic tiles, doubles as a seating area, the park is an invitation to sit, stay and enjoy. A series of animal sculptures – beaver, raccoon, fox, bear – remind us that we humans are not alone. An island in the pond contains a mature catalpa, one of several trees retained from the abandoned parkette that originally occupied the site.

And let’s not forget the pergola. Whether it’s an arbour, artwork, or an installation, it stands out and above the park, an elaborate metallic creation conceived for no other reason than to give us pleasure. Fabricated by Eventscape, a custom architectural manufacturer based in Etobicoke, it is a happy reminder of the depth of the skills available locally.

It is interesting to compare Love Park with its surrounding that date back as long as half a century. Back then, precious little thought was given to the public realm. Robert Campeau’s 1970s concrete bunkers on the south side of Queen’s Quay are some of the most depressing structures ever erected in Toronto, let alone the waterfront. They brought almost nothing to the street. The 1990 Residences of the World Trade Centre at Yonge and Queen’s Quay reluctantly raised the ante with a charmless hard-surface square that happened to include a major sculpture by British artist Richard Deacon. Though the artwork remains, the square has since replaced by a more garden-like installation worthy of one of the city’s most significant intersections.

And to be fair, the 2014 Royal Bank at WaterPark Place, which abuts Love Park, represents major step forward in the willingness of an otherwise conventional office tower to engage in the street life of a city. Lined with striking yellow chairs and tables, the Queen’s Quay frontage reads like an extended outdoor café. It’s a far cry from the Royal Bank’s fortress-like gold-clad twin towers up the road at Bay and Front.

It’s early days still, and winter looms, but can there be any doubt that Cormier’s wonderful addition will live up to its name? Perhaps the song was right, after all. Maybe love really is all we need.

Written by: Christopher Hume via Storeys.com

The post Love Park A Heartening Symbol For Toronto’s Public Realm appeared first on Preconcentral.com | New Pre-Construction Homes & Condos for Sale from Toronto's Top Home Developers & Builders.