King City Home Renovations: Big Rooms, Long Driveways, Decks with a View

Settled in the 1830s under the name Springhill, King City grew once the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway, today's Barrie GO line, arrived in 1853. Heritage houses still stand around the King Road and Keele Street crossroads, and the Township keeps a register of listed and designated properties. A listed house needs no heritage permit for renovations, but the Township must be notified before it is demolished and given time to consider protecting it, and work affecting a designated property's heritage attributes may need a heritage permit and Council approval. We check the register before an old addition or outbuilding comes down. Our crew then handles demolition, framing, insulation, drywall and trim, while licensed electricians and plumbers replace any outdated wiring and piping the walls reveal.

Behind the townhouses and newer detached houses in the village, the limit on a deck is usually yard space rather than slope. There we fit the stairs, a privacy screen and room for the barbecue into a compact footprint, and keep the frame inside the zoning setbacks so the plan does not have to be redrawn. The Township spares only a small, low, freestanding deck from a building permit, so a deck off the back door generally needs one. Think ahead, too: if the deck may later carry a sunroom or solarium, which needs a permit of its own, the footings and beam have to be sized for walls and a roof, and that is far easier to decide before the posts go in.

King City relied on septic tanks until a sanitary sewer went in, with construction under way in 2005, and the subdivisions that followed were expected to add about 690 detached houses and 299 townhouses. Many of those houses are now more than five years old, the point at which Ontario's second-unit guide treats a house as existing and allows more flexibility: a basement suite may have a 1.95-metre ceiling over its required floor area, and the 30-minute fire separation between units can drop to 15 minutes when every smoke alarm in the house is interconnected. Suite or not, the Township's permit list covers finishing a basement for personal use, finishing a roughed-in bathroom and adding exterior stairs down to the basement, and we gather what each application asks for.

The village's 1960s subdivisions were laid out as ranch bungalows on large lots. Many have since given way to custom houses, but in those still standing the kitchen is usually small, closed off and topped by nothing but attic. That attic makes new ceiling lights easy to add, but every opening is a hole in the ceiling's air barrier: a licensed electrician fits airtight fixtures rated for contact with insulation, and we seal and re-insulate above them so warm, damp air cannot frost the roof deck in January. On country lots that drain to a septic tank, the SepticSmart guide for Ontario homeowners advises against a garburator unless the system was designed for one, so we plan a compost pull-out by the sink.

Tap water here blends Lake Ontario supply with groundwater, and recent York Region figures put it around 130 mg/L, in the hard range, while Nobleton and Schomberg, on wells alone, come in at roughly twice that. In a bathroom that leaves scale on clear glass and polished chrome, so we suggest glass with a protective coating, brushed fixtures and fewer grout joints in the shower. While the walls are open, a licensed plumber can advise on a softener; on a septic lot, its backwash should not drain into the tank unless the system was designed for it.

Where windows look out over open fields, low winter sun reaches deep into the room and, over the years, shifts the colour of wood and many stains. We suggest laying a sample board in the brightest spot and checking it morning and evening before you choose, and moving rugs now and then so they do not leave a pale outline. Long open plans raise a second question. A floating floor laid unbroken for many metres needs room to expand, so either a transition goes in at a doorway or the planks are glued or nailed down instead, as the manufacturer allows. Where the floor is heated, the plank has to be rated for it, and the thermostat wiring is a licensed electrician's job.

Across King Township the door used every day is often the side or garage entry, and what comes through it depends on the land: sand off the moraine, mud and bedding from the horse and cattle farms the township is known for, black soil from the Holland Marsh at its northern edge. We tile those mudrooms with textured porcelain that grips when wet, over a subfloor stiff enough for larger tiles, and choose a mid-tone grout that hides dirt between cleanings. A bench, boot tray and hooks belong on the plan before the tile layout is set. For a heated floor, a licensed electrician connects the thermostat to the mat we set under the tile.