When people tell us they want to “do the whole house,” they usually picture the rooms: a new kitchen, a better bathroom, a brighter main floor. In a hundred-year-old East-Toronto house, those rooms are the part you see. Most of a full renovation is the part you don’t: the wiring, the plumbing, the walls that hold the heat in, the structure that holds the house up, and, in a semi or a row house, the wall you share with your neighbour.
This is what a full renovation of an older house really involves, shown through houses we’ve opened up ourselves.
What "full" means in an older house
A full home renovation in Toronto’s older neighbourhoods is one connected job across four layers of the house:
- Structure: foundations, floor joists, load-bearing walls and the openings cut through them.
- Services: electrical, plumbing and drains, heating and cooling.
- Envelope: insulation, air sealing, windows, doors and the roof.
- Finishes: kitchens, bathrooms, floors, trim and paint.
In a house built in the 1910s or 1920s, several of the four have often reached the end of their life together, and they’re tangled together. New insulation means opening the walls. Open walls are where the old wiring is. A new layout moves plumbing, and moving plumbing usually means meeting the original drain stack. Doing the whole house means doing these together, in the right order, once.
We’ve written about each layer separately: knob-and-tube wiring, old brick foundations and underpinning, insulating an older brick house, and the full inventory of what to check and what comes first in The Order You Do Things In. This post is about what happens when you take them on all at once.
The wall you share
Much of East Toronto is semi-detached and row housing. In a full renovation, the party wall is part of the job whether you planned for it or not. It carries floor joists from both houses, it’s often the least-documented wall on the property, and anything structural you do near it involves your neighbour.
On our Dilworth Crescent semi, the work started from “extensive rot throughout and significant issues with the party wall,” and the party wall was repaired and reinforced as part of a full gut. If you share a wall, read Party Walls in Toronto before you start drawing.
What we found when we opened them up
Most older houses hold something the drawings didn’t show. A few examples from our own projects:
- Simpson Avenue, Riverdale. A hundred-year-old Victorian, wood frame on a brick foundation. When the original hardwood came up on both floors, the joists underneath needed repair, and the same work turned up a leaking shower. The envelope was performing poorly, so the job included exterior rigid foam, spray foam, new windows and doors and a metal roof, alongside a two-storey rear addition. See the project.
- Dilworth Crescent. Rot through the house and a party wall in poor shape turned this into a full gut: floors and walls rebuilt, the party wall repaired and reinforced, new electrical, plumbing and HVAC, and a rear addition. See the project.
- Bradgate Road. Not every older house is a Victorian. On this 1950s bungalow, opening the roof and brick showed a chimney “failing from the roofline up,” so it was rebuilt. See the project.
- Withrow Avenue, Riverdale. And sometimes the house is kind. On this Victorian semi there were “no surprises once it was opened up”. The structure was sound. The hard part was access: the brick foundation ran deeper than usual and no machine could reach the yard, so the hole for the addition was dug by hand. See the project.
The point isn’t that older houses are bad news. It’s that a full renovation has to be planned and priced with room for what the house will tell you, and the person reading the house should be the same person who designed the job.
How a full renovation runs, start to finish
- Assess the house. Before anything is drawn, we look at structure, services and envelope so the design starts from the house you actually have.
- Design and drawings. Layout, structure and services are designed together. Our drawings are prepared in-house by a BCIN-qualified designer.
- Permits. A full renovation almost always needs a building permit, and sometimes a minor variance at the Committee of Adjustment if the plan goes beyond what zoning allows. Here’s how the Toronto permit process works.
- Build in sequence. Structure and below-grade work first, then envelope and services, then finishes, with inspections at each stage. The order matters more in an older house than anywhere else (why).
- Decide as the house takes shape. You’ll see the house framed before the finishes are fixed, and that’s when the best decisions get made. Here’s how changes work on our jobs.
On timing: a full renovation with an addition is measured in seasons, not weeks. Simpson Avenue ran from summer 2025 to summer 2026, including a winter pause on the exterior. Your timeline is set at design stage, once the scope and permits are known.
Because one team designs and builds, the person who drew the house is the person who answers when the walls open. That’s the core of how design-build works, and it matters most on a full renovation.
Living in the house, or not
On a full renovation, there will be stretches when parts of the house have no water, heat or power, and dust that no containment fully stops. Many families move out for at least the heaviest phase. If you plan to stay, say so at the start. It changes the order of work, how the house is zoned off and how long the job takes, and it’s far easier to plan for than to improvise. Budget for temporary accommodation if you’ll need it.
What it costs
Our East Toronto Cost Index puts a whole-home renovation at $350–$560 per square foot (2026 figures). Treat that as a starting band, not a quote. As our century-home pricing guide puts it, per-square-foot pricing “for century homes, it’s often misleading,” because the cost of an older house sits in what’s behind the walls, not in its floor area. A real number comes from a real assessment of your house.
Two City programmes to time in
- Lead water service. If your house was built before the mid-1950s, the line from the street may be lead. The City will replace its side if you commit to replacing yours, and a full renovation, with floors and basement walls open, is the easiest time to do it. See the City’s Priority Lead Water Service Replacement Program.
- Basement flooding protection. The City subsidises backwater valves, sump pumps and related work, and the timing has to be planned around the slab and drywall. Here’s how to collect it inside a renovation.
Is a full renovation the right call?
Not always. If the work is separable, a bathroom this year and the exterior next, phasing can make sense. When the wiring, plumbing, insulation and layout all depend on each other, doing the whole house at once is usually cheaper and less disruptive than opening the same walls twice. The Order You Do Things In walks through that decision.
Frequently asked questions
In an older Toronto house, it usually covers structure (foundations, joists, load-bearing walls), services (electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling), the envelope (insulation, windows, roof) and the finishes, planned and built together as one job.
A full renovation with an addition is measured in seasons. One of our recent Riverdale projects ran from summer 2025 to summer 2026. Your timeline is set at design stage, once the scope and permits are known.
Our East Toronto Cost Index (2026 figures) puts whole-home renovations at $350–$560 per square foot as a starting band. In a century home, per-square-foot figures can be misleading, so a real number needs an assessment of the house.
Many families do for at least the heaviest phase, when water, heat or power are off in parts of the house. If you want to stay, plan it from the start. It changes the sequence and the schedule.
Almost always. Structural, plumbing and HVAC work need a City building permit. Electrical work is permitted and inspected separately through the Electrical Safety Authority. If the plan goes beyond what zoning allows, a minor variance may be needed. We prepare the drawings and handle the application.
