We have a wide variety of architectural housing styles in the Vancouver area. The evolution of styles over the past 150 years, blended with our cosmopolitan history means that a Big Box 1980s McMansion can share the streetscape with a cedar cottage and a concrete-and-glass contemporary styled home.

With good planning and design, you can always manage to avoid the Curse of Renovation; that is, having you renovation actually look like a renovation at completion.

A successful approach is to exercise great care to add touches that are in keeping with the original themes. Walk your neighborhood to look for features and details on houses of similar age or style, then bring those to the attention of your contractor. He or she will experiment by drawing the addition of some of these elements to the design. Make sure you look at several compositions before settling in on the final design. Rememberdesign changes are not costly when they are made on paper but when you make the changes after the job has begun the costs climb steeply.

By: Ralph Belisle