Our Process

After an initial phone conversation, one of our experienced, knowledgeable consultants will visit you in your home for 60-90 minutes to hear more about the challenges and issues you and your family are experiencing. We strongly encourage both partners and other interested parties in your family to be present so we can get a clear picture of everyone’s ideas and concerns, and can answer all your questions.

We’ll do a review of your property, and we’ll brainstorm together about possible solutions and strategies. We’ll share examples of relevant projects we’ve completed for others in your neighbourhood, and have a candid discussion about budget and timelines. The purpose of this meeting is to allow us both to decide whether we’d like to work together. If either of us feels the fit wouldn’t be right, it’s okay to say so. If we both feel comfortable at the conclusion of the meeting, we agree to move forward with the next phase of the process, which is to enter into a conceptual design services agreement.

For a fixed fee of typically between $8,000 and $15,000, depending on the size of the house and the nature and scale of the project being considered, we provide an in-depth exploration of different design options. We will help you understand what’s possible with your property, how much your project will cost, how long it will take and whether there may be any complications obtaining City approvals.

One of our staff project managers is assigned to your project, and the best-suited designer from our design team is appointed as your primary designer.

A date is established for the team to come to your home and take detailed measurements and photos of your house.

You provide us with a copy of your property survey. If you don’t have one, don’t worry—we may be able to locate one through www.landsurveyrecords.com or www.protectyourboundaries.ca. If not, we can commission a new one for you.

We prepare existing floor plans and exterior elevation drawings of your house (front, side and rear drawings of the exterior of the house) using our state-of-the-art computer-aided design BIM drafting software, called Vectorworks.

We also prepare a site plan of your property, which combines the critical elements of the property survey with the details we’ve recorded about your building.

We do some preliminary research with the City of Toronto to ascertain the zoning regulations that apply to your property. This information, along with the statistics about your existing house, is entered into a zoning table as part of the drawing package.

With the existing plans in hand, we have a preliminary design meeting with you. Attending this meeting will be the designer, the project manager and the senior consultant who initially met with you. We review all your issues, concerns and ideas for the house in more detail, as well as your target budget and timelines, and we look at any photos, sketches or product ideas that you may want to share with us that would help the designer steer the initial conceptual plans in the right direction.

We schedule a follow-up meeting, typically a week or two later, to review first draft conceptual plans. Usually we’ll bring at least a couple of different plan options to review. We’ll take your feedback about the draft plans and follow up with any required variations, revisions or adjustments. For everyone’s convenience, we’ll typically recommend connecting via video conference online. This can be a great way to review plans together and we can even sometimes make minor plan adjustments on the fly during our video calls.

Once we have conceptual plans that you’re happy with, we prepare a carefully considered construction budget estimate. If the project as designed is costing more than you’re comfortable with, we can make adjustments to the design or the scope of work to align with your budget. We’ll repeat the above steps as required until we arrive at a solution that works for you.

If the desired plan includes any additions to the building, we will prepare and submit the plans on your behalf to the City of Toronto zoning department for a zoning review. This is not a building permit application. It is a preliminary step towards a permit, where the City determines whether the proposed construction would violate any zoning or other special regulations. If it does, they’ll provide us with the details of the variances that we would need to request from the City’s Committee of Adjustment. If there are no zoning violations, they’ll issue a document called a zoning certificate, which confirms that the proposed plans are acceptable from a zoning standpoint.

The next step is to enter into a design build construction agreement, where we’re making a firm commitment to each other to move ahead with the project. Our design team will now prepare materials for the next step in the approvals process. If we’ve determined that zoning variances will be required, we’ll apply on your behalf to the Committee of Adjustment, and then we’ll get to work on the detailed technical drawings, including structural engineering, construction assemblies, cross sections through the building, window and door schedules and various other details required to prepare a complete package suitable for building permit application and construction. We prepare electrical and lighting plans and, where applicable, we’ll develop heat loss calculations and heating design plans.

The project manager who has been involved with you throughout the design process now sets up a schedule for construction and prepares a detailed selections list for you on our project management website, to which you have 24/7 access.

The selection list notes all the decisions and actions that we need from you in order to complete the project. We provide you with deadlines for each of these items so you know what you have to do, and when. You’ll find lots of additional helpful information here, such as suppliers, contacts and other resources to help you with product selections.

If you want to handle all the product, fixture and finish selections on your own, you can. If you’d like the assistance of our experienced designers, we’re ready to offer you all the help you need to make the right choices on everything, right down to window coverings, furniture and artwork if you wish.

Our project manager will work with you to get prepared for the project. We’ll address issues like access, neighbours, parking, fencing, protection of your finishes and landscaping, and identify any items you want salvaged during demolition. Your project manager will make arrangements for a portable toilet if necessary, arrange buried services locates, work through Ministry of Labour requirements to check for hazardous materials like asbestos, and address any required tree protection.

The fun begins now as our team of professional renovators and specialty tradespeople works in an organized, safe, supervised, tidy manner. Our project manager coordinates all the necessary personnel to execute the work, arranges for necessary inspections at the required intervals and ensures that the work follows the plans and the schedule. Your project manager will communicate with you frequently—typically at least once a day to let you know what’s happening and address any questions or concerns. You will also receive monthly cost reports to keep you up to date on any elements of the project that are being provided on an allowance (cost-plus) basis.

As we reach the end of construction, we work with you to make any necessary adjustments or deficiency corrections and help you get acclimated to your newly improved home. Sometimes little issues can arise as the house settles, and as humidity and temperature levels change through the first year after construction. We’re ready to come back promptly and address these as required.

We stand behind our work with a no-nonsense, complete four-year warranty on everything we do. Our reputation for prompt, responsive warranty support has been one of the key factors in the success of our company. We don’t want you to forget about us, and we promise we won’t forget about you after the work is finished. We want to be your design build partners for life!