Renovation in Laval.
The buildings here
Bungalows and split-level homes from the sixties to the eighties, on generous lots. Many of these houses have belonged to the same owners for a long time: needs have changed, the house hasn't kept up.
The more recent stock, condos and townhouses, raises different questions, closer to Montreal's.
What we're asked for most
Opening the kitchen onto the living room, because the partition between them dates from a time when people didn't live the way they do today. Finishing or redoing a basement to gain the equivalent of a storey. Extending to the back rather than moving, which is more and more often the most rational calculation.
Laval's own constraint
The split-level. It's a specific and very common structural puzzle here. The half-levels frequently rest on the very walls people want to remove, and the load transfer has to cross two offset floors before coming down to a support. The result is feasible and often spectacular, but it's calculated and sealed before a single sledgehammer swing.
The basement of that generation. Headroom often just under the comfortable threshold, original drain at the end of its useful life, no ventilation planned. Those three things are checked before the quote, never after.
So, what are we working on?
Eight questions, two minutes. We call you back to talk it through, and we tell you frankly whether it's a project for us or whether you'd be better served elsewhere.