Interior designer in Vancouver

Vancouver's east and west side streets are full of character homes with good bones and awkward plans. Renovating them means respecting what the house does well while rebuilding kitchens, bathrooms and basements to how families live now. Where structure moves, our in-house drawings keep the permit process moving.

Condo work is its own discipline: building bylaws, elevator bookings, working hours and strata approvals shape the schedule as much as the design does. We plan around those constraints because we have managed installs through them.

Laneway and secondary-suite projects reward tight space planning. A well-drawn 600 square feet outperforms a careless thousand. In a small plan we draw the furniture first, then the walls, so every room is sized for what has to fit in it.

The Vancouver Special is a renovation type of its own. The plan is simple and the structure is forgiving, which makes these houses good candidates for an opened main floor, a better stair and a proper suite below.

Vancouver administers its own building bylaw, so drawings are prepared to the City of Vancouver's requirements, not assumed from another municipality's. We confirm what the city will ask for before we quote a drawing package.

Older houses hide surprises behind the plaster. We plan for that by measuring carefully, drawing what is actually there and keeping the decisions that depend on site conditions open until the walls have been looked into.

Vancouver now allows multiplexes on many residential lots, in step with BC's small-scale multi-unit housing legislation. Several homes on one lot means every unit plan is tight, and the interiors have to be resolved early because there is no spare floor area to absorb a late change.

Kitchens in older Vancouver houses are usually small and closed off at the back. Whether to open one up is a design question and a structural one. We show you both versions on paper, with what each involves, before you choose.

Our studio is in Surrey, and we plan Vancouver projects around that. Site visits are combined with trade meetings, reviews of drawings and samples happen by video or at the studio, and during construction you receive a weekly summary of progress and decisions.