Bolton Home Renovations, Down in the Valley and Up on the Hills

A split-level from Bolton's 1960s and 1970s growth stacks its rooms on three or four half-floors: living and dining rooms at the entry, bedrooms a short flight up and a family room a short flight down. The kitchen usually sits closed off between them, and opening it means finding out which walls hold up the floor above. Once an engineer has sized the beam and the Town has issued the permit, we take the wall out, frame the opening and carry new drywall and flooring through the joined rooms. Some side-splits and ranch bungalows stand inside the heritage district, and every property there is designated, contributing or not, so even on one of these a bigger rear window or a new patio door needs a heritage permit as well.

On the steep ground north and south of the river, a walkout basement is really two spaces: a bright end with a door and full windows facing the yard, and a buried end against the hill. We put the family room or a guest bedroom on the daylight side and keep the mechanical room, storage and a bathroom toward the hill. A bedroom on the buried side generally still needs a window large enough to climb out of, which can mean a new opening and window well. Houses from the 2000s often came with a rough-in for a basement bathroom, which spares breaking the slab for drains, and the cold cellar beneath the front porch usually stays as storage. A basement like this generally takes four to eight weeks.

In the old village, many kitchens sit in a rear wing added behind an Ontario cottage or Victorian Gothic house, and a wing like that can stand on a shallower foundation or a crawl space rather than the full basement under the main block. Its floor may dip toward the yard and run cold in January, so before any cabinet is hung we level the joists and insulate the crawl space walls and rim from inside. Up on the hills, a 2000s kitchen usually holds the patio door to the raised deck, and keeping that route clear decides where an island can stand. A licensed gas fitter hooks up any gas range, and the HVAC trade routes the hood's exhaust. Kitchens generally take three to six weeks.

In a side-split, the bedroom level often sits over the garage, and the main bathroom's drains and supply lines can run through a garage ceiling that drops below freezing in a hard winter. When we open that bathroom we look at the ceiling underneath too: where possible a licensed plumber moves the pipes up into heated space, and we insulate the garage ceiling and seal it airtight, since the wall and ceiling between an attached garage and the house are meant to keep exhaust fumes out. Above it, the room usually needs a new tub surround, a larger vanity and a fan ducted to the outside rather than into the attic. Expect a bathroom like this to take two to four weeks.

River water is treated differently from a burst pipe. Floodwater from the Humber, like a sewer backup, counts as contaminated, so once the drying company has finished, porous materials it reached, such as drywall, insulation, carpet and underpad, come out instead of being dried and kept, with the cut line well above the high-water mark. Many home insurance policies cover overland flooding and sewer backup under separate endorsements, so check which one applies before the scope is written. The Town's draft policies for the core ask new buildings to keep panels and other building system controls above the regulatory flood level. In an existing house, raising the panel, furnace or outlets is a decision for a licensed electrician and HVAC technician, made before we close the walls.

Behind a walkout, a deck can stand a full storey above the yard on tall posts, so footing depth, post size and bracing matter more than the boards. Where the back wall is brick veneer, the deck gets its own beam and posts alongside the house instead of a ledger bolted through the brick. The space underneath can stay open, be screened with lattice or become a dry patio off the lower level if a drainage system is fitted under the joists. Stairs down a sloping yard often need a landing partway, and a guard runs along every open edge.

Downtown shops occupy buildings such as the 1875 Gardhouse Store at 49 Queen Street North, re-bricked in the 1960s, and most of the core lies inside the heritage district. A new storefront, changes to an existing one and new signage go through a Minor Heritage Permit, so a café or office fit-out there starts with the street face. South of the core, the plazas along Highway 50 and the big-box centre at McEwan Drive bring a different kind of work: demising walls, new ceilings, flooring and paint between leases, with the landlord's sign-off. Sprinklers, wiring and ductwork go to licensed contractors, and the tenant's designer or architect supplies the drawings that we build from.