Home Renovation in Vancouver

Gastown Loft Living is a renovation inside an older building on East Cordova. We kept the loft character and rebuilt everything else: custom kitchen cabinetry with a subway tile backsplash and quartz counters, a peninsula over polished concrete floors, custom stair treads, built in under stair cabinets that hide the laundry, bookcases for an office nook, and two bathrooms with custom tile and black fixtures.

Penthouse Dreams is a Yaletown penthouse on Marinaside Crescent with a custom kitchen and bar, floor to ceiling Italian marble in the bathroom, a freestanding tub and a rooftop patio. Dunbar Special is a west side house with a cedar and stone entrance, a clear cedar ceiling inside and a kitchen with a live edge bar. Open any photo to see it full size, or browse the rest in the gallery.

Vancouver condo and loft renovations run on the building's terms. The strata has to approve the scope, the contractor's insurance and the work hours, the elevator has to be booked and padded for every delivery, and there is rarely a place to park a truck. Heritage buildings in Gastown and Yaletown add their own layer: protected exterior elements, floors that are not level, and services that are old. We read the strata bylaws and the heritage designation before we price the job.

Houses on the west side and in east Vancouver are often 1910s to 1940s character homes with knob and tube wiring, cast iron drains and no insulation, so a renovation usually includes bringing those up to date. Permits are issued by the City of Vancouver under its own Vancouver Building By-law, which differs from the BC Building Code in places, and the City's review times are longer than on the North Shore. We build that into the schedule from the start.

Vancouver quotes come from a site visit and a written scope. In a condo, the logistics are a real line item: elevator bookings, protection of common areas, carrying materials up and debris down, and shorter working days under strata rules. In a character house, the age of the wiring and plumbing is often the biggest unknown until the walls are open.

Your quote is itemised with allowances for the finishes, and changes are priced before they are made. The items below are the ones that most often set the budget in the city.