Inside Law & Order Toronto actor Kathleen Munroe’s sentimental trinket-filled loft

In 2025, when Kathleen Munroe began looking to buy a place in Toronto, instead of making a list of requirements, she took the advice of a trusted friend who told her to envision how she wanted to feel when she came home. “I just wanted to feel cozy, safe and nurtured,” she says.

In June of 2025, near Roncesvalles, she found a 1,100-square-foot two-bedroom loft located in a red-brick complex that was once a lozenge factory. It was bright and open-concept, and most importantly, it felt like home.

For Munroe, the idea of home has evolved over the years. The Hamilton-born actor moved to LA when she was 24 and has spent time in New York and Paris, with short stints in Toronto. Now, playing detective Frankie Bateman in Law & Order Toronto, Munroe is finally planting some roots and has filled her loft with textures and objects that make her feel grounded.

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The first thing she did after getting the keys was remove the second bedroom to make space for a dining area. Hosting is a passion—since re-settling in Toronto, Munroe has started a supper club of sorts that brings together creatives from across the city. “ I’m so curious about what other people are working on and what perspectives they have,” she says. “It’s amazing how willing people are to convene.”

Taking up one wall of the dining room is custom oak shelving by local carpenter Andrew McEwan, which she filled with hundreds of books brought from her former home in LA. “I drove back across the country with my car so full, at the first gas station I stopped at two books were just coughed out,” Munroe says. On another wall is a blank space for her projector, which she uses to watch movies and basketball games (she’s a Raptors fan, of course).

Some of the first furniture pieces Munroe selected included a pair of antique asymmetrical yellow chairs that she purchased on Facebook Marketplace. “They arguably don’t work aesthetically, but when I saw them I thought, That’s how I want to feel when I’m at home,” she says. “ I’m a sucker for brocade. There’s something earthy, yet a bit feminine and fancy, but also worn in about them.” She placed them next to a Corbusier LC4 chaise longue (“I read the paper there every Sunday morning”) and a low green velvet stool from an antique shop called the Secret Cubby in upstate New York.

Munroe surrounds herself with objects and trinkets from her life—including a towering cactus she bought in the pandemic and transported on her then-wife’s skateboard, floral vintage plates from her grandmother, and a tea towel with an image of Bart and Lisa Simpson that she embroidered herself. Leaning against one wall is a small collection of guitars—Munroe is a lifelong musician—one she bought in Paris and a 1959 Harmony Stratotone Jupiter she bought secondhand on Reverb from a man in Alberta. “Thankfully my neighbours can’t hear my singing,” she says.

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“Pretty much everything, save the bed and linens, is from Facebook Marketplace or a vintage shop,” says Munroe. This ethos applies to her wardrobe as well. Most of her clothes are vintage, and she’s fascinated by antique textiles, particularly quilts. On her bed is a quilt from 1893, and another hangs in the front hallway, tracing the family tree of an unknown clan in thread. “I absolutely love it. It’s like a little mystery,” she says. “I look up at the names and wonder, Who are you?”

Munroe replaced most of the loft’s fixtures with vintage ’70s Murano glass or Italian pieces, and she tailored each to match the room. The warped glass of the ceiling light in the powder room, purchased at the Door Store, reminds her of a pine cone. It’s paired with handmade emerald-green floor-to-ceiling tiles from Canadian company Geon, making you feel like you’re perched in a tree.

Her eccentric mix-and-match style extends to her artwork. A painting of her family dog, Buddy, by Hamilton artist John Smith hangs in the bedroom. A nameless abstract piece she found in Chinatown adorns the living room wall. The glass of the latter shattered in the move, and a tiny dot of blood can be spotted on the print if one looks closely.

Rocks and crystals are scattered everywhere. “You can’t be queer in LA and not like crystals,” Munroe laughs, picking up an amethyst from the coffee table. “Most of the rocks are from my favourite spots, like Leslie Spit. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid.”

Even her bathroom adheres to the mineral theme, featuring a tub and sink made from a single piece of quartzite. “I chose the stone that felt most like Ontario,” she says, adding that none of her big ideas would have been possible without her contractor, Carlos Silva. It reminds her of the Canadian Shield rock near her best friend’s Muskoka cottage as well as childhood summers spent in Tobermory.

Below her loft’s wide windows and balcony, a GO train trundles by. “I’ve never lived in a place where I can’t hear trains,” she says. Her dad used to lay rail tracks in Hamilton, and she finds the sound comforting. Munroe embraces this grittier side of the city. “I love my view,” she says. “I’ve got the No Frills parking lot. I can see the CN Tower. It’s the Toronto I know.”

Munroe says she once believed that living an adventurous life meant constantly expanding—place, career, friends—but after returning to Toronto, she’s rethinking this perspective. “At a certain point, expansion feels like it doesn’t need to be external,” she says. “Getting to know my nieces and nephew, spending time with old friends and my parents—that feels expansive too.”