Main Floor Renovation in Whitby, Ontario
A full main-floor transformation — a chef-worthy kitchen with a commercial-grade range, a custom gathering island, and porcelain plank tile flowing from the front door through every room.
‹ Back to PortfolioShe'd Waited Ten Years and Turned Down Three Contractors
By the time Jolette called us, she'd already had three other contractors through her Whitby home. The quotes ranged from twenty-seven thousand dollars to ninety. Three different visions of her kitchen. None of them hers.
This was her forever home, and this was the kitchen she'd been picturing for ten years — not a renovation she wanted to get through, but one she wanted to get right. She'd even bought the flooring years earlier: 7"×40" wood-grain porcelain plank, sitting in her basement, waiting for the right person to install it.
The day I came to quote it, I got there early. Her home office faces the street, so she watched me sit in my truck until just before five, when the appointment actually started. She told me about that later — that small thing, showing up on time and not a minute early to crowd her, mattered to her.
We didn't talk about price first. We talked about how she lives. She loves to entertain — game nights, people in the kitchen, everyone gathered around one island. So we designed around that: a commercial-style range for a cook who actually cooks, an island built to gather at with seating on both sides, wine storage on one end, drawers on the other. When I suggested a pot filler, she didn't even know what it was. She went and researched it, came back, and said yes.
That's the part most people miss about a renovation. The drywall and the tile and the cabinets — that's the easy part to promise. The hard part is listening well enough to build the thing someone has been carrying in their head for a decade.
So we built it. And when the smaller things came up along the way — the bulkhead that needed bumping out for a clean line, the main-floor doors and trim that weren't technically in scope — I handled them, some of it on my own dime, because finishing it right mattered more than finishing it to the letter of the contract.
At night, she'd read the construction binder I leave on site — the specs, the standards, the plan. She works in an industry that does the same thing. She recognized it for what it was: the DNA of her renovation, written down. That's when I knew we were building more than a kitchen. We were building the reason she'd never call anyone else.
The Scope of Work
Here is the work we did on this project, from start to finish.
- Sealed off the living space to contain dust before any demolition began
- Demoed the outdated flooring, removed the old cabinets, and opened the walls
- Removed and reconfigured the old buzzing pot lights
- Opened the bulkhead, removed the old 6" duct, and ran new 12" duct through the brick for a commercial-grade range vent
- Integrated the homeowner's existing wire appliance racks into the new design
- Maximized storage with custom cabinetry and abundant drawers
- Roughed in a pot filler above the range
- Bumped out the bulkhead over the fridge, rack, and pantry for one cohesive line
- Sanded and skim-coated the previously textured walls smooth
- Painted the kitchen, hall, powder room — plus all main-floor doors and trim
- Installed uncoupling membrane and levelled the subfloor for large-format tile
- Installed 7"×40" porcelain plank tile through the kitchen, hall, foyer, and powder room
Materials We Used
A Commercial Range Meant Real Ventilation
A serious kitchen needs serious air movement. Here's a challenge this job demanded, and how we handled it the right way instead of the easy way.
Running new 12" duct through a brick wall
Jolette was going with a commercial-style range, so I recommended a commercial-grade vent to match — anything less would have left smoke and grease with nowhere to go. But that vent required 12" ductwork, and the existing run was only 6".
So we opened up the old bulkhead, removed the undersized 6" duct, ran a proper 12" duct to the exterior, cut cleanly through the brick, and installed the correct vent. It's the kind of work that never shows in a finished photo — but it's the difference between a kitchen that looks the part and one that actually performs like a chef's kitchen should.
Where It Began — a 10-Year Vision, Finally Mapped Out
This was Jolette's forever home and her first major renovation — a vision she'd been shaping for years. Before any demolition, we gathered exactly how she lives and entertains, then designed a kitchen built around her: a commercial range, a gathering island with seating on both sides, wine storage on one end and drawers on the other. She'd had three other contractors quote it. As she put it, we were the only one who got her vision.
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Demo, the Vent Through the Brick, and Building It Back Right
Day one we sealed off the living space to contain dust, then took the kitchen down to a clean slate. From there: the new 12" range vent run out through the brick, the bulkhead bumped out for a cohesive line, walls skim-coated smooth, a pot filler roughed in, and then the floor — a demanding 7"×40" porcelain plank that needed uncoupling membrane, a dead-flat subfloor, and levelling clips throughout. This is the part most homeowners never see, and it's where the quality is built.
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A Chef's Kitchen Built for Game Night
The space Jolette pictured for a decade, made real — a commercial-style range under a proper vent, a custom island built to gather around with seating on both sides, wine on one end and drawers on the other, and the porcelain plank she'd saved for years finally flowing through the whole main floor. Clean, functional, and built to host.
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A Home She'll Host In for Years
The kitchen Jolette had imagined for a decade is now the heart of her home — the gathering spot for game nights, the chef's kitchen she always wanted, at a fair price, in the forever home she's poured herself into.
At the final walkthrough she had tears in her eyes. We went through everything — including the extras, like the main-floor doors and trim I painted on my own dime just so the whole space would finish right. Then I handed her The Cornerstone Care Guide — the DNA of her renovation — every product, finish, warranty, paint colour, and tile code documented in one binder, plus her client-portal login with every photo, daily log, and financial record in one place. And because every Cornerstone project deserves a proper send-off, a thank-you basket to welcome her into the space we built together.
Every Cornerstone project ends with The Cornerstone Care Guide and a thank-you — the relationship doesn't end at the invoice.
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