Project — Main floor
Walls out, ceiling up. A closed-in bungalow became one continuous main floor — a vaulted kitchen with a twelve-foot island, a panelled dining room, and two living rooms carrying full-height built-in millwork.
Location
Ottawa, Ontario
Category
Whole main-floor renovation
Scope
Structure, vaulted ceiling, kitchen, millwork, flooring, lighting
Year
2024
Duration
Approximately 14 weeks
The brief
Solid bones, generous footprint, and a floor plan that gave none of it away. A galley kitchen sat behind a wall from the dining room, the family room read as a corridor with a television at one end, and an eight-foot flat ceiling capped a roof with real volume above it.
One connected main floor for a family that cooks and entertains: a long island people can actually sit at, sightlines from the range to the front window, storage that isn't furniture, and rooms that feel finished rather than decorated.
The idea
The build
A whole-home renovation lives or dies on sequencing. Structure, mechanical and millwork were drawn together before demolition started, and the same project manager carried the job from the first beam to the last piece of trim.
The wall between kitchen and dining came out on a new engineered beam, with posts buried in the millwork and a flush-framed drop where the ceiling planes change. Getting the load path right first is what let every other decision be about design instead of workaround.
The flat ceiling was taken out and the roof volume opened into a clean vault over the kitchen and living area — insulated to current standard, drywalled with crisp transitions, and lit with recessed fixtures plus three blackened-steel lantern pendants over the island.
Soft-white shaker cabinetry to the ceiling, a herringbone tile backsplash, integrated hood, gas cooktop and wall ovens. The island runs twelve feet in mitred quartz over a dark rift-oak base — prep on one side, four stools and a wine fridge on the other.
The dining room got applied panelling, a round mirror flanked by matching sconces, and a clean plaster ceiling with recessed lighting. It reads as its own room without a single wall closing it off from the kitchen.
Two custom units, built in our shop. The family room carries a full-height painted wall of open shelving, drawer banks and cabinets around the television; the front sitting room takes a floor-to-ceiling smoked-oak run that hides a second television and a wall of storage.
Wide-plank character oak runs unbroken through every room, with new baseboard, casing and plantation shutters throughout. It's the layer nobody photographs and everybody feels — one floor, one trim profile, one window treatment.
Off the kitchen, a full-height grey-oak wall runs floor to ceiling — a recessed television, closed cabinets on either side and enough depth to swallow coats, games and everything a main floor otherwise leaves on display.
The lower bath was rebuilt around Ontario barnwood: a plank feature wall and mitred niche behind the tub, a glass shower in white subway tile with a rain head, olive-green vanity in grey quartz, and a marble hexagon floor.
Outside, a two-level cedar deck with a black aluminum rail steps down to a pergola-covered hot tub pad, then out to a large-format paver terrace with a stone fire table and planted borders. Grade, drainage and lighting were set before a single paver went down.
Details
Outcome
From the front door you now see the whole floor: dining, kitchen, island, and daylight from three sides under a vaulted ceiling. Same footprint, twice the house.
See more of our work“Height is the cheapest luxury in a bungalow. It's already up there — someone just has to open it.”
Start your renovation
Tell us how you use the house today — we'll come back with a layout, a scope and a firm quote.
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