Port Credit Renovations for Village Houses and Waterfront Condos

Across the river from the heritage district, the streets around Memorial Park and Stavebank Road mix early twentieth-century houses with storey-and-a-half homes and 1950s and 1960s ranch bungalows, many updated piecemeal by successive owners. This side lies outside the district boundary, so the district plan does not govern exterior work, although an individually designated house has rules of its own. Opening up a floor here usually means peeling back earlier layers: dropped ceilings, patched plaster, mismatched floors and doorways moved more than once. We strip back to sound framing, level settled floors, hang drywall and finish with trim and paint. Knob-and-tube wiring, if the walls reveal any, is left to a licensed electrician, and a load-bearing wall stays until its replacement beam has been engineered and permitted.

Many of Port Credit's harbour-side condominiums are roomier than the condo norm. Suites in the first Regatta building at 65 Port Street East start at roughly 1,150 square feet, so a kitchen there can often take an island or a full pantry wall instead of a single run of cabinets. The sink and dishwasher usually stay near their drains, which join a stack shared with the suites above and below. Replacing cabinets needs no City building permit, but the corporation will usually want the scope and the noisy dates in writing first. Counters are templated once the boxes are fixed, a licensed electrician wires new lighting, and a condo kitchen like this typically runs three to six weeks.

In a storey-and-a-half house, the upstairs bathroom is usually squeezed under the roof slope. We plan the shower or tub where the ceiling reaches full height and tuck the vanity or toilet toward the lower side, framing niches into the knee wall for storage. The fan duct needs a route outdoors, and in the heritage district we try to keep any new vent off the side facing the street. Old plank subfloors in these houses tend to flex, so before tile goes down we add a layer of plywood and an uncoupling membrane to keep grout lines from cracking. A licensed plumber handles the pipes, and you can expect to be without that bathroom for two to four weeks.

Hard flooring is the alteration Port Credit's condo boards look at most closely, because footsteps carry through a concrete slab into the suite below. Most corporations name an approved underlay or a minimum sound rating, and some want the product sheets before work starts, so the underlay is chosen first and the plank second. Engineered wood and rigid vinyl plank both work, floated or glued as the underlay maker specifies. Slabs are often not flat enough for long planks, so high spots are ground down and hollows brought up with levelling compound. Around the edges we leave a gap closed with flexible sealant, so the new floor does not touch the walls and pass sound into them.

Many brick bungalows on Port Credit's side streets have basements finished decades ago or not at all, which owners now turn into family rooms or a rental suite with its own entrance. In the old village, a new side door or a below-grade stairwell changes the outside of the house, so it usually needs heritage approval too. Living space below grade needs a City building permit, and a rental suite then goes on the City's register of second units once its permit has passed final inspection; registering costs nothing. Exits, fire separation and headroom are set out in a designer's drawings; we build the framing, insulation, drywall and floors to them, and licensed trades handle plumbing and wiring. Construction typically takes four to eight weeks.

Cranberry Cove's tree-covered streets and the mature yards of the old village are a large part of their appeal, and the City protects that canopy: a permit is needed to injure or remove any private tree 15 centimetres or more in diameter, dead ones included. Digging footings among large roots may itself be treated as injuring the tree, so we place posts clear of them and suggest an arborist's opinion when a trunk is close. Where roots cannot be avoided, helical screw piles, put in by a specialist crew, disturb far less soil than dug footings. Under a big canopy, boards collect leaves and stay damp, so we space them for drainage and keep the underside open to air.

Lakeshore Road East and West form Port Credit's main street, lined with restaurants, cafés, boutiques and small offices, and some of the Port Credit Village townhouses were built as live/work units. When a storefront changes hands, the new tenant usually needs partitions moved, ceilings and lighting redone, new flooring and paint, and sometimes a service counter or millwork wall. New walls or a change of use generally call for drawings from a designer and a City permit before work begins, and kitchen exhaust, gas and plumbing belong to licensed trades. We agree working hours with the landlord so the shops on either side can keep their doors open, and we protect the shared entrances that deliveries pass through.