Concord Office Fit-Outs and Home Renovations, Highway 7 to Glen Shields

Concord is Vaughan's main industrial district, and some of its multi-unit buildings are industrial condominiums, where the business owns its unit instead of leasing it. Ownership changes who signs off. The condo corporation's declaration and rules take the place of a lease, and the board or property manager usually has to approve work that reaches the common elements, which can include the roof, the exterior walls, the shared sprinkler system and the fire-rated wall to the next unit. We ask for those rules before pricing, plan deliveries around shared driveways and docks that neighbouring owners still need, and build inside the unit to the permitted drawings while licensed trades handle the wiring, sprinklers and ductwork.

The warehouse and light-manufacturing buildings that grew up around CN's MacMillan Yard were laid out for pallets and racking, not desks, so a new office inside one sits far below the roof deck. Decide how the rooms will be topped before the first stud goes up. The walls can stop at a framed lid over the offices, which can carry light storage only if an engineer sizes it for that load, or run full height and be braced to the roof structure. We usually frame in steel studs, leave openings for interior windows that look onto the warehouse floor and add blocking for shelving, monitors and grab bars before the board goes on. Sound-absorbing insulation in the cavity costs little now and is hard to add later.

The streets southeast of Keele Street and Highway 7 were Concord's first suburban housing, a small development of the 1950s. After roughly seventy years many of those houses have been changed piece by piece, so a whole-floor renovation often begins by untangling earlier work: plaster patched beside newer drywall, floors built up with layer on layer of covering, doorways moved without matching trim. Testing comes before demolition in houses of this age, because plaster, attic vermiculite and older floor tile may contain asbestos, and an abatement firm removes anything that tests positive. With that settled, we peel the floors back to the original subfloor, which at this age may be diagonal boards rather than plywood, and level it so the new floor runs through without a step at each doorway.

Link homes in Glen Shields read as detached houses from the street, but below grade most are joined to the house next door by a shared foundation wall, and that wall sets the terms for the basement. We frame clear of it instead of fastening into it, fill the cavity with mineral wool so a neighbour's laundry and television stay on their side, and look hard at any crack before it disappears behind drywall, since a repair there concerns both owners. The outside walls get rigid insulation and a sealed vapour control layer. If renting the space is a possibility, say so before framing: a fire-rated ceiling, a separate entrance and larger bedroom windows cost far less to build in now than to retrofit.

In Dufferin Hill's brick detached houses and townhomes the kitchen rarely needs to move. Leaving the sink, dishwasher and range where they are lets the plumber and electrician reconnect rather than reroute, so more of the budget goes into what you see and use: new cabinet boxes and doors, stone counters in place of laminate, a tile backsplash and lighting under the uppers. A new layout still has to respect the floor, though. In most of these houses the hardwood or tile stops at the old cabinet bases, so a different footprint exposes bare subfloor. We plan the new cabinets to cover the old outline, or price new flooring through the room, before anything is ordered.

Where a Glen Shields backsplit or link home still has a single full bathroom on the bedroom level, shared by the whole household, a second one is the usual goal. In a backsplit the lower family-room level is often the easiest place for it, and we check where the main drain runs at the first visit, before anyone commits to a layout. Because a new room adds plumbing fixtures, Vaughan wants a building permit before the plumber roughs it in, as it does for a powder room tucked under the stairs or a toilet shifted to make room for a wider shower. Replacing a toilet, tub or vanity in the same spot generally needs none.

Concord's industrial buildings span half a century, from the 1950s premises south of Highway 7 toward Jane Street to units finished in the 2000s, so roofs, drains and sprinkler piping vary in age. Water often comes from above or next door: flat roofs leak around drains and rooftop units, sprinkler lines in an unheated corner can freeze, and a neighbour's leak can run under a shared wall. Once the roofer, plumber or fire protection contractor has stopped the source, we remove wet ceiling tiles, drywall and insulation, check steel studs and track for rust, dry the space, then rebuild. We photograph each stage for your insurer, and in an industrial condo for the corporation, since the cost may be split between the unit and the common elements.