Kitchens and Fine Finishing for Oakville Homes

Working from a designer's plan

In Oakville, a new kitchen is often planned by an interior designer or kitchen studio well before a builder is called. We treat those drawings and finish schedules as the reference for every decision on site. Before demolition, we walk the room with you and, where possible, with your designer, to confirm measurements, appliance sizes and anything the plan assumes about the walls behind it.

The work then follows a steady order: careful removal of the old kitchen, any framing changes for a new layout, drywall and ceiling repairs, flooring or tile, cabinet and trim installation, and paint. The trades responsible for fixture and appliance hook-ups come in on dates we agree with them in advance. Expect three to six weeks on site for the kitchen itself, and custom cabinetry lead times are the part most worth planning around, so we like to know your order dates early.

The same approach carries over to ensuites and main-floor refreshes. A new kitchen often shows how tired the adjoining floors, trim and paint have become, so we can plan those rooms into one schedule and handle the transitions between old and new deliberately rather than as an afterthought.

When the finish level is high, small decisions carry more weight:

• Scribing panels and fillers to walls that are rarely perfectly straight
• Laying out tile so the cuts land where no one looks, not in the sightline from the family room
• Keeping trim reveals and paint lines consistent from one room to the next
• Protecting hardwood, stair treads and existing millwork for the whole length of the job

Glen Abbey, Joshua Creek and the heritage streets by the lake

Housing across Oakville covers a wide span of eras. Glen Abbey was built out as a planned community from the mid-1980s through the 1990s, and many of its two-storey homes are reaching the age where the kitchen and main floor need rethinking. The estate streets of Morrison and Eastlake, along with newer communities such as Joshua Creek, include large homes with tall ceilings, where coffered ceilings, wainscoting and built-in cabinetry call for patient carpentry. Bronte, which grew up around its harbour at the mouth of Bronte Creek, combines older houses with a good deal of newer construction.

Closer to downtown, Old Oakville is a designated heritage conservation district, one of several in the Town of Oakville, and much of its housing was built in the nineteenth century. Exterior changes to properties in these districts generally need heritage approval from the Town, and even interior work in a house of that age calls for a light hand: plaster walls, original trim profiles and floors that have settled over a century or more. We match existing mouldings where we can, fit new trim to follow old walls rather than forcing them straight, and agree with you on which original details stay before anything is taken out.

Whatever the age of the house, your estimate is written and itemized, and any change to the design once work has started is priced and approved by you before we carry it out.