Kitsilano’s housing is largely pre-1930: 1910s and 1920s character houses on 33-foot lots between West 4th and Broadway, many since converted into duplexes or with a basement suite. The kitchens were built for a household that had a pantry, a back porch, an icebox and no dishwasher.
Renovating one is a different discipline from renovating a newer kitchen. Walls lean, floors fall, ceilings are 8 ft 4 in or 9 ft, and there is a decent chance of finding knob-and-tube wiring behind the plaster.
Why stock cabinets do not work in a Kitsilano kitchen
A wall out of plumb by 15 to 25 mm over its height is ordinary in a 1912 house. Stock cabinets are made in fixed widths for plumb walls, so the result is a run of filler panels with a tapering gap between the counter and the wall that gets filled with caulk and cracks.
Built-to-size cabinetry solves it in two ways. The run is made to your wall’s actual dimension, so a 2,840 mm wall gets 2,840 mm of cabinetry. And the end panels and scribes are cut on site to follow the wall rather than assuming it is straight.
The height is the other gain. A Kitsilano kitchen with a 9-foot ceiling can carry full-height cabinetry that stock ranges do not make, which is how a 100 sq ft kitchen gets the storage it otherwise lacks. See custom kitchen cabinets.
Making a small Kitsilano kitchen bigger without moving a wall
Three moves work in these houses without touching structure: absorbing the back porch or mudroom into the kitchen, absorbing the original pantry, and replacing a swing door to the dining room with a wide cased opening. All three are cheaper than removing a load-bearing wall.
The back porch is the most common. Many Kits houses have an enclosed rear porch off the kitchen that is already inside the building envelope but poorly insulated and unheated. Bringing it properly into the kitchen adds 30 to 60 sq ft for far less than an addition.
The pantry is next. Original walk-in pantries in these houses are often 1 to 1.5 m² and reachable only from the kitchen. Absorbing that floor area and replacing the storage with a pull-out larder usually gains usable working space.
Where a wall does need to come out, it is frequently load-bearing in these houses — and they have often been altered before, sometimes without proper support. We look at the framing before quoting. See open-concept conversion.
What is behind Kitsilano plaster
| What we find | How often | Cost to deal with (CAD) |
|---|---|---|
| Knob-and-tube wiring | About 1 in 5 pre-1950 homes | $3,000 – $11,000 |
| 60-amp or 100-amp panel | Common | $2,500 – $6,000 to upgrade |
| Shiplap sheathing behind plaster | Very common | Helpful — solid fixing |
| Galvanised supply piping | About 1 in 4 | $1,500 – $6,000 to re-pipe |
| Floor out of level 20 – 40 mm | Most houses | $1,200 – $5,000 to level |
| Asbestos in flooring or joint compound | Possible pre-1990 | $400 survey; $2,000 – $12,000 abatement |
| Earlier unpermitted alterations | Common | Case by case |
We open the sink base and check the panel at the measure, so most of this is quoted rather than discovered. Hold 15% contingency on a pre-1940 house rather than the usual 10%.
Lanes, parking and getting materials in
Kits lots are 33 feet wide with a lane behind, and where the lane is usable it is the better route for both delivery and disposal. Street parking on the numbered avenues is tight and permit-controlled in much of the neighbourhood, so we arrange City parking permits where a job needs sustained truck access.
In a converted duplex or a house with a suite, access also means coordinating with whoever else lives there. We agree the working route and protect it before the first load arrives.
