Project — Ottawa
Main floor opened end to end, two kitchens' worth of millwork, a skylit dining room, quiet corners built into the plan — and upstairs, a vaulted primary bedroom with a triangular gable window framing the treeline.
Location
Ottawa, Ontario
Category
Whole-home renovation
Scope
Kitchens, main floor, stair, primary suite, millwork, flooring
Year
2025
Duration
Approximately 20 weeks
The brief
Small rooms, a boxed-in stair and a kitchen tucked away at the back. The family loved the lot and the light it could get, but the plan fought them every day — no sightlines, nowhere to sit together, and storage scattered through rooms that all wanted to be something else.
Open the main floor without losing the warmth. Keep everything bright and pale — white oak floors, soft greige walls, quiet hardware. Give every room a reason to be used: a place to read, a place to sit with coffee, and a primary bedroom that finally makes use of the roofline.
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.
Walls came down between the kitchen, dining and living rooms, with new beams carrying the load so nothing drops below the ceiling line. The stair was opened up with white oak treads and slim black spindles, so light from the back of the house now reaches the entry. Wide plank white oak runs unbroken across the entire floor to keep the space reading as one room.
Ceiling-height shaker cabinetry in a soft warm white, quartz counters with a waterfall on the island, brass pendants and a bank of integrated pantry storage that hides the small appliances. A second, tighter galley run near the entry handles overflow and everyday breakfast, with a white oak island and seating on the open side.
A new skylight was cut into the dining ceiling and the vault opened above the table, so the middle of the house — usually the darkest part of a narrow plan — is now the brightest. A sculptural globe fixture drops from the ridge, and floating shelving on the far wall carries the eye through to the living room and the deck beyond.
Two small rooms were kept deliberately small. A sitting nook by the pantry holds two chairs, a side table and the family's art wall. Along the back, a full-width window seat with drawer storage below turns the view of the garden into the best seat in the house — the kind of detail that only works when it's framed and trimmed as carpentry, not furniture.
Upstairs, the flat ceiling was removed and the roof structure opened to a full vault, with a ridge beam left exposed and a triangular gable window set into the peak. Two runs of casement windows bring in the treeline on both sides, recessed lighting is set into the slopes, and a low bench with cubbies keeps the floor clear. Pale oak flooring carries up from the main level.
Details
Outcome
The same footprint now works like a much larger house. Light travels from the front door to the back windows, the family eats under a skylight, and the primary bedroom finally uses the roof it always had.
See more of our work“Opening a house up is the easy part. Giving people somewhere quiet to land afterwards is what makes it feel finished.”
Start your renovation
Tell us how you live in the house today — we'll come back with a plan, a scope and a firm quote.
We typically respond within one business day.
