West of Alma, running toward UBC and down to Spanish Banks, Point Grey is mostly 1920s and 1930s houses on generous lots, many with water and mountain views to the north, interspersed with substantial rebuilds.
The renovation brief here is consistently the same: a kitchen that takes advantage of the view and the light, in a house whose services were specified in 1928.
Designing a kitchen around a north-facing view
A view wall gets no wall cabinets, which removes roughly a third of the storage a conventional kitchen relies on. That storage has to be recovered in tall runs on the opposite wall, in a deeper island, or in a pantry — and it has to be planned before the layout is settled, not discovered after.
The lighting consequence follows immediately. No wall cabinets means no under-cabinet task lighting on that run, so the counter needs downlights positioned carefully over its front edge, or a slim suspended linear fitting.
Point Grey’s north-facing light is also specific: bright, cool and reflected off water for much of the day. Stone that looks warm in a showroom can read grey and flat in it. We bring samples and ask clients to look at them in the actual room at the time of day they use it most. See kitchen design services.
Old services in substantial houses
Point Grey houses are frequently large and frequently still on 100-amp or even 60-amp service. A kitchen with an induction range, a wall oven and a modern appliance load will not run on that, and a panel upgrade is $2,500 to $6,000.
The calculation is not only about the kitchen. Many of these houses are also adding heat pumps and EV chargers, and the total household load is what determines whether 200-amp service is needed. Doing the upgrade during the kitchen renovation, while walls are open, is substantially cheaper than doing it later.
Knob-and-tube also turns up in perhaps one pre-1950 house in five. Where it is in the kitchen walls, replacing it costs $3,000 to $11,000 and is far cheaper now than after the walls close. See kitchen plumbing and electrical.
Working in a house that has been renovated before
Most Point Grey houses of this age have been through at least one substantial renovation, often in the 1980s or 90s. That is a mixed blessing: the wiring and plumbing may already have been modernised, but earlier work also sometimes removed structure without replacing it properly.
We open an inspection hole and look at the framing before quoting anything structural. It costs an hour at the survey and prevents the most expensive kind of surprise.
Typical Point Grey projects
| Project | Scope | Cost (CAD) | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen renovation, layout kept | Custom cabinetry, stone, tile, floor | $70,000 – $120,000 | 7 – 10 weeks |
| Kitchen opened to the view | Wall removed or window enlarged, engineered | $95,000 – $180,000 | 10 – 14 weeks |
| Kitchen plus electrical upgrade | Full renovation plus 200-amp service | add $2,500 – $6,000 | add 3 – 5 days |
| Counters and backsplash only | Stone selected at the yard, tile behind | $8,000 – $18,000 | 2 – 3 weeks |
