Commercial · Amenity spaces · Gatineau, QC

Canevas,
by Brigil

A library, a kitchen, a private dining room and two offices, furnished in solid wood for the residents of one building.

Walnut library wall with open shelving and closed storage in the Canevas lounge — The library wall, built in walnut, anchors the residents' lounge.

Client: Brigil
Project: Canevas
Location: Gatineau, QC
Scope: Custom furniture & millwork
Completed: 2026
Watch: The reel on Instagram ↗

Common areas in a residential building have a hard job. They belong to everyone and to no one, they get used every day, and they have to look as good in year ten as on move-in day. For Canevas, Brigil asked us to furnish them.

Every piece on this page was designed and built for its room. The palette stays deliberately tight: walnut where the spaces are meant to feel warm and lived in, a deep black stain where they are meant to feel sharp and communal. The two finishes repeat from one room to the next, so the building reads as one hand rather than a collection of purchases.

The Library

A wall of walnut, floor to ceiling

The lounge needed a reason to stay. We gave it a full-height library wall in walnut: open shelving above, closed storage below, and a deep recessed bay that turns the whole unit into a backdrop rather than a cabinet. The grain runs vertically across the doors so the wall reads as one surface when closed.

Shelf depths vary across the unit to hold books, ceramics and the odd plant without looking staged. The cabinet doors are flush, handle-free and push-to-open.

Detail of the walnut library with ceramics and books on open shelves — Open shelving above, closed storage below. Vertical grain on every door.

The full walnut library wall with a leather lounge chair in front — The whole wall, with the lounge in front of it.

The Kitchen

Two Fundas, end to end

The residents' kitchen is built around two Funda rectangle dining tables in blackened oak, set end to end in one line so they read as a single communal table running the length of the room, on a row of solid cylindrical legs. Split them and the room hosts two dinners at once.

La Torontoise chairs, in the same blackened oak, run down one side. A Laila bench takes the other, its two waterfall legs flowing straight from the top to the floor, and tucks fully under the tables when the room is empty.

The Canevas kitchen with a long black communal table, bench and chairs beside a glass partition

Two Funda tables in a line, with a Laila bench, in the residents' kitchen. Glass partition to the corridor.

Black communal table with curved-back dining chairs and a wooden tray — La Torontoise in blackened oak. The curved back reads soft against the Funda's straight edges.

Close detail of the mitred black bench and cylindrical table leg — Laila waterfall leg, Funda cylinder.

View of the communal table and bench from the kitchen entrance — From the kitchen side.

The two Funda dining tables with La Torontoise chairs against a burgundy wall and a large window

The line of Fundas from the window side, with La Torontoise all around.

Two finishes, repeated room to room, so the building reads as one hand.

On the material palette for Canevas

The Private Dining Room

Elena, under the lamps

The private dining room is a different mood. Two Elena dining tables in blackened oak, their fluted aprons catching the light from a pair of pendant lamps, sit on a kilim in front of a brick wall. Candles, not a centrepiece.

Here La Torontoise switches to walnut. Against the black top and the brick, the chairs are the warmest thing in the room, which is the point.

Elena fluted dining table in blackened oak with walnut La Torontoise chairs under two pendant lamps against a brick wall — Elena in blackened oak, La Torontoise in walnut.

The Elena table and walnut chairs seen from the side under the pendant lamps — The fluted apron, up close.

The Elena table seen through an arched opening with a burgundy wall — Through the arch, from the lounge.

A Laila bench in blackened oak against a cream wall in the lounge next to the private dining room, with a mirror and a plant on it — The lounge next door. A second Laila bench, in blackened oak, by the piano.

Through the arch, the lounge that opens onto the dining room gets a second Laila bench in blackened oak, by the piano. Same finish as the Elenas, so the two rooms read as one.

The Offices

Two rooms, one desk each, the length of the wall

Two closed offices for residents who work from home. Each gets a continuous walnut desktop, wall-mounted so nothing touches the floor and the room stays easy to clean. Thick top, no visible brackets.

It brings the walnut from the library back into the quietest rooms in the building.