Concrete is Key in this Luxury Vacation Home Remodel

Modern-Rustic Design Inspiration from Gibson Contracting

Oyama, a quaint town in the heart of Lake Country, British Columbia, is known for its sunshine, blue-green lakes full of rainbow trout and peaceful pace of living. That’s precisely why a couple from Edmonton hired custom home builder and general contractor Gibson Contracting to build the vacation home of their dreams there.

“The cool thing about this property is that you enter on a road that dead ends to a provincial park on a peninsula called Kaloya Regional Park, which has a picnic area with a beach,” says Jenifer Berkhiem, who project managed the build for Gibson Contracting. “It’s a popular spot for boaters.”

The project was meant to be a modest renovation, but the quality of the existing foundation was so poor that the entire house had to be torn down so the foundation could be ripped out and redone. In the process, it didn’t take long for the scale and vision for the new home to grow much grander. Today the 5,000-square-foot home incorporates a loft, a spacious main floor and a finished basement.

Another notable change in plans involved the white porcelain sinks initially specified to go throughout the home. When the homeowners came across our NativeStone sinks in a local showroom, they quickly revised those plans. The homeowners swapped out every last porcelain sink for a NativeStone concrete sink to better suit the cabin aesthetic they wanted to achieve in their lake house.

“They saw the concrete sinks, and they thought, ‘Wow, these are just amazing; they go completely with our theme, and we have to do it,’” says Berkhiem.

Made from a mixture of cement and naturally sustainable jute fiber, NativeStone complements the modern rustic aesthetic throughout the house. This highlights the exposed lumber and stone and, of course, the heated concrete floors that run throughout the basement and main floor.

For the master bathroom in particular, they went all in on concrete. They used a NativeStone trough sink and our roomiest NativeStone Avalon tub. The addition of the latter came as a sentimental afterthought. “At first, they just had all the sinks in concrete, but [the owner’s] wife’s birthday was coming up and she had absolutely fallen in love with the Avalon concrete tub so he ended up surprising her with it,” says Berkhiem. “He kept it a secret and had it installed. When they came up for a site visit on her birthday, he showed her the tub.”

He kept it a secret and had it installed. When they came up for a site visit on her birthday, he showed her the tub.

Dekton quartz clads the shower walls, and oil-rubbed bronze fixtures and faucets are used throughout the entire home. All of the oil-rubbed bronze lighting fixtures are from Restoration Hardware.

Designed for entertaining, the kitchen also used NativeStone as a centerpiece and as a grounding element. “The eleven-foot island had storage at both sides and that really cool concrete sink from you guys. The apron sink draws your attention down to the polished concrete floor and ties it all together,” explains Berkhiem.

Continuing the aesthetic of rustic luxury in this kitchen are a Wolf range, an assortment of high-end appliances, quartz countertops and exposed timber on the kitchen ceiling and throughout the main living room.

The apron sink draws your attention down to the polished concrete floor and ties it all together.

Photography by Matt Lucas
General Contracting by Gibson Contracting

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