Emily Wunder is an interior designer who is passionate about the relationship between form and function. When it came to selecting a roof material for a 7000-square foot, modern mountain style home in St. Marys Ontario, she wanted to specify a product that reflected the quality of the home itself.
“When you put so much thought and effort into the design of your house, shouldn’t your roof reflect that? It’s the one thing that’s protecting your home.”
Wunder specified Vicwest’s Prestige roofing material in Ebony Signature matte. “Prestige in black worked well with not only the aesthetics of the house but also because of the massive expanse that they needed for this roof. We wanted it to last.”
“With Prestige, Vicwest came to the project with a lot of added value – for instance a large selection of colors. This black color, for instance, it’s a softer blacky-gray color that’s really nice versus just “pitch-black”, which we did not want.”
“Prestige also had a really great lead time for getting it stocked and installed.”
In comparison to other metal products, Wunder found the quality of the Prestige roof to be the stand-out. “When I use the word quality to describe a roof, I mean how it comes together; the way it joins has a lot to do with the aesthetic. With a lot of other metal roofs, the aesthetic isn’t quite there.”
“Then, of course, there’s also the feel. Not many of us are touching our roofs, but as a designer, when you feel the steel in your hand, you can just tell that it’s made with a lot of thought.”
“That’s what I care about. I don’t want to have my clients investing in something that’s not going to last. From an environmental standpoint, you don’t want to throw something out because it just hasn’t been able to hold up to the changing weather and temperatures that we get here in southwestern Ontario.”
For Wunder, convincing the homeowner was easy. “For all of us, asphalt wasn’t even an option. I don’t like asphalt. It doesn’t last. It doesn’t look good generally. And it definitely would not have looked good on this house.”
“So the choice really came down to whether we should go with a cedar roof because they do last a long time. But a metal roof will last a lifetime. When they saw the Prestige product, the homeowners were instantly sold. The only decision was to choose a color.”
With Prestige, Wunder was pleased to source a roof that mimicked the quality of the rest of the house. “In building this house, the homeowners really didn’t spare any expense and they wanted to make sure that all the products that they put into it were going to stand the test of time.”
