As a full-service renovation company, we deliver attention to detail, quality, and service at every stage. You’ll discover that a home renovation project can be a pleasure.
Whole Home Renovations in Victoria, BC
We look forward to helping you discover the unique hidden potential in your home renovation.
A whole home renovation is a different undertaking from renovating one room. Every trade, every material order and every inspection has to line up in the right sequence, and when one thing slips the rest of the schedule moves with it. We manage all of it, so you are dealing with one contractor and one point of contact rather than coordinating six trades yourself. We have been renovating homes across Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Esquimalt since 2017.
What a Whole Home Renovation Includes
Every house is different, and the scope is set at the quote stage. Most of our whole home projects involve some combination of the following.
Planning and design.
Layout changes, wall removals, how the rooms will connect and where the money is best spent. We work this out with you before anything is ordered.
Structural work.
Removing or relocating walls, installing beams and posts, correcting framing and dealing with what the original build left behind.
Plumbing and electrical.
Rewiring, panel upgrades, new supply and drain lines, heating and ventilation, coordinated with licensed trades.
Kitchens and bathrooms.
Usually the two rooms that drive the schedule, because of cabinetry lead times and tile labour.
Windows and doors.
Replacement units, resized openings and new exterior doors.
Flooring, trim and paint.
Continuous flooring across the main level makes a house read as one home rather than a series of rooms.
Custom carpentry.
Built in cabinets, pantries, fireplaces and mantels, feature walls and shelving.
Permits and inspections.
Where a permit is required we handle the application and the inspections.
Final clean.
We bring in a cleaner when the work is finished, so you get the house back the way it should be.
How a Whole Home Projects Runs
1. A walkthrough of the house. We go through the whole home with you, not just the rooms you have decided to change. What you want in the kitchen often depends on what happens to the wall behind it, and it is better to see the full picture before anything is priced.
2. Scope and drawings. We agree on what is in and what is out. Where walls are moving or structure is involved, this is the stage where drawings and engineering get sorted out.
3. A fixed, itemized quote. You get a written breakdown rather than a lump sum, so you can see what each part of the house costs and adjust scope while adjusting is still free.
4. Schedule and material selections. Cabinets, tile, flooring, windows and fixtures are selected and ordered before demolition starts. This is the single biggest cause of delay on whole home projects, and it is avoidable.
5. The build. Work runs in sequence, one trade handing off to the next. You get a schedule, you know who is in your home each day, and you have one person to call.
6. Deficiency walkthrough and handover. We go through the finished house with you, work through your list, and take care of it before we call the project done.
What a Whole Home Renovation Costs in Victoria
Most contractor websites will not answer this question.
Here is roughly where our whole home work lands in Greater Victoria.
An interior refresh runs $90,000 to $180,000. That is flooring, paint, trim, lighting, doors and updated bathrooms, with the floor plan staying exactly as it is. It suits a house that works the way you need it to and simply looks tired. A full interior renovation falls between $200,000 and $400,000. The interior comes back to the studs, and you get a new kitchen, new bathrooms, some walls moving, rewiring, new plumbing, new windows and new finishes throughout. This is the range most of our whole home clients end up in. Above that, a character home restoration or a renovation with an addition starts around $450,000 and climbs from there, because it brings in foundation and structural work, heritage requirements, new square footage, or a house that is being reconfigured rather than refinished.
Three things move that number more than anything else.
The first is how much of the floor plan is changing. Refinishing rooms in their existing shape is far cheaper than moving walls. Every wall that comes out has to be checked for load, and every load bearing wall that comes out needs a beam, posts and a load path carried down to the foundation. That is engineering, materials and structural labour on top of the finish work you were already paying for, and it is the difference between two projects that look identical on a floor plan.
The second is the age and condition of the house. Knob and tube wiring, cast iron drains, no insulation in the walls, asbestos in old flooring and rot at the sills all cost money to put right, and none of it can be seen from the outside. A whole home project is less of a gamble here than a single room is, because we can open up more of the house before we quote it. More of what is wrong gets priced rather than discovered.
The third is the kitchen and the bathrooms. These two rooms usually account for a disproportionate share of a whole home budget. Cabinetry, tile and plumbing are where two houses of the same size end up tens of thousands of dollars apart, and they are also where scope tends to creep once the project is underway.
You will find national per square foot averages online that sit below anything you will be quoted here. Renovating on Vancouver Island genuinely costs more. Materials come across on the ferry, skilled trades are in short supply, and Victoria's older housing stock takes longer to work on than newer construction. A quote that undercuts the local market is usually doing it by leaving something out.
Our quote is fixed and itemized, so you can see what is included, what is not, and where your money is going. Anything discovered mid project is priced and approved in writing before we carry on.
Renovating a Character Home In Greater Victoria
A large share of the housing in Fernwood, Fairfield, James Bay, Rockland and Oak Bay was built before the Second World War.
These are some of the best houses on the Island to work on and some of the most demanding.
What we typically find in an older Victoria home:
Wiring that predates most of what is plugged into it.
Knob and tube, no grounding, and a panel that cannot carry a modern kitchen. Whole home projects are the right time to deal with this, because the walls are open anyway.
Plumbing at the end of its service life.
Cast iron drains that have thinned from the inside and galvanized supply lines that have narrowed to a fraction of their original bore.
Framing that has moved.
Floors that are not level and walls that are not square. This matters when cabinets, tile and glass all assume straight lines. We correct the framing first and measure afterward.
No insulation, or insulation that has failed.
A whole home renovation is the only practical opportunity to fix a building envelope, and it is the change homeowners notice most in January.
Heritage designation.
Some homes require a heritage alteration permit before exterior work can proceed. Requirements differ between Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Esquimalt, and we will tell you which apply to your house at the quote stage.
Newer homes in Gordon Head, Broadmead and the Westshore are generally more straightforward, and we will tell you so at the consultation.
Living In The House While We Work
Most whole home clients ask this first, so here is a straight answer. If the project involves the kitchen, the main bathrooms and the electrical service all at once, living in the house is difficult and usually slower and more expensive, because the crew is working around your belongings and shutting things down at the end of each day.
Where a house can be split into stages, staying is often workable. We can finish one bathroom and a temporary kitchen before opening the rest of the house, so you have somewhere to wash and cook. It costs a little in schedule and it saves you months of rent.
We will give you an honest read on this at the walkthrough rather than after you have already committed.
All at Once or One Room at a Time
Doing a house in one project costs less per room than doing the same work over five years. The crew mobilizes once, the trades are sequenced together, the walls are only opened once, and the finishes match across the whole house.
The case for staging it is cash flow, and it is a reasonable one. If that is where you are, the order matters. Anything structural, electrical or plumbing related should be done first, because those are the items that force finished work to be torn out later. Kitchens and bathrooms come next. Flooring, trim and paint go last, once nothing above them is going to be disturbed again.
If you are starting with one room, we can plan it so the rest of the house follows without rework. Our bathroom renovation and kitchen renovation pages cover those in detail, and a basement renovation is often the cheapest square footage you will ever add.
Recent project: farmhouse-style kitchen
Not every whole-home project starts with the whole home. On this one the client had a specific vision for an open, farmhouse-style kitchen. Walls came out, floors came up, and new plumbing and electrical were run before anything went back into place.
Here are a list of services that we provide:
New Windows and Doors
Pantries
Living Rooms and Family Rooms
Custom built in cabinets
Fireplaces and Mantels
Feature Walls
Custom Renovations of all types
What Victoria Homeowners Are Saying About Their Full Home Renovations
"We hired Mike after interviewing several other GCs in Victoria, and right away, Mike was the stand out for professionalism, ambition, and passion. We had a very tight timeline of 3 months to make our new home move-in ready, and Mike HUSTLED. A 2200sq ft top to bottom reno, 70% completed in 3 months is a huge lift, and Mike rose to the occasion. Once we moved in, the last pieces of the reno fell into place and we are so happy with the results. Mike went above and beyond for us, over and over again. We will absolutely be hiring him again for our next flip or reno - he's the guy who just knows how to get things done!"
— Blaise FontaineYou can read all of our reviews on our Google Business Profile.
Whole Home Renovation Questions We Get Asked
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Most full interior renovations run three to six months on site. A refresh finishes sooner. A project involving structural work, an addition or a heritage permit takes longer, and the permit stage happens before we start rather than during. You get a schedule with your quote.
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Yes. Where a permit is required we handle the application and the inspections. Whole home projects almost always need one, because moving walls, altering structure, relocating plumbing and upgrading electrical service are all permitted work. Requirements vary between Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Esquimalt, and a heritage designated home may need a heritage alteration permit as well. We will tell you at the quote stage what your project requires and what it means for your start date.
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Not always. For layout changes within an existing footprint we can usually work directly from the walkthrough and the drawings we prepare. Additions, foundation work and anything that changes the structure of the house need proper drawings and engineering, and we will tell you which category your project falls into before you spend money on either.
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Yes. Some homeowners choose every fixture and finish themselves and we install exactly what they have picked. Others would rather we bring a short list that suits the house and the budget. Either way we will flag long lead items early, because one back ordered window or cabinet run can hold up an otherwise finished house.
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We tell you the same day, show you what we found, and put the cost of the fix in writing before we carry on. Rot, old wiring, failed waterproofing and framing that was never square turn up regularly in older Victoria homes. All of it is fixable, and none of it should be covered over. You will never see a charge on the final invoice for work you did not agree to.
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We work across Greater Victoria, including Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt and View Royal. Call us about anything further out and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.
One Contractor, One Schedule, One House
We will walk through your home, tell you what it can take, and give you a fixed written quote. We serve Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal and the surrounding communities. The first conversation is free.