01Whole home
We put off the whole house for years because we couldn’t picture living through it. Akram walked us through every stage before it started, and each week went the way he said it would.
Whole homes · 01 · The whole house, renovated as one
Whole-Home Renovations in Oakville
Home renovations in Oakville start with the layout for the whole floor plan. Structure and services follow it, and finishes come last, so the order of work is set before the first wall comes out.
- Licensed builder
- WSIB
- Years building
- 15+
- Houses completed
- 300+
What’s included
What’s included
in a whole home.
The parts of the house a renovation takes in, planned as one sequence: layout first, then structure, services, finishes and, where it is in the job, the outside.
Layout changes and open-concept conversions
Beams and pipes follow the layout, decided first across the entire floor plan: the walls that come out and the rooms that open together.
Structural work: load-bearing walls and beams
A beam sized for the wall’s load replaces it, set under a building permit and left open for inspection until it is signed off.
Electrical, plumbing and HVAC, coordinated
Rough-ins get inspected across the whole house ahead of any room being closed. The builder orders each trade and runs the schedule.
Insulation, drywall, flooring, trim and paint throughout
A finished room is not reopened by the next trade, since each finish is done across the entire house in a single pass.
Siding and windows, as part of the whole
When the job includes the outside, siding and windows go in during the same project instead of becoming a second project later.
How it runs
The whole frame,
stage by stage.
Whole houses and rooms alike follow the same order: five stages, each answered for by one builder.
- 01
Permits
Any wall or structure that moves comes under a building permit, filed ahead of any wall opening.
- 02
Structure
Framing the new layout comes after walls are out and beams are in across the house.
- 03
Trades
Rough-ins share the open walls, so the builder orders the trades and inspections follow.
- 04
Finishes
Every room is done together: insulation and drywall first, flooring, trim and paint after.
- 05
Handover
Every room done, final inspection next, then the finished house changes hands.
Why Hanna Homes
Why one builder
for all of it.
How one builder holds a whole-house job together, and what that job depends on.
No room is reopened for the next trade, because a single plan sequences layout and structure first, then services and finishes.
Finishes go over inspected work only. The beams are set and stay open until inspected, and drywall waits for that to be done.
The builder books wiring, pipes and ducts in an order that inspections can follow, as they run through the same walls while open.
Whatever the plan opens, walls and ceilings alike, has its material examined first, so any finding is worked into the room order ahead of the trades.
Start with a call.
Client reviews
Their house,
their words.
Whole homes and single rooms, in the words of the people who live in them.
02Whole home
We bought an older house knowing it needed everything. Akram was straight with us from the first visit about what was worth keeping. Every room is new to us now, and it still feels like the house we fell for.
03Kitchens
The crew covered the floors and cleaned up at the end of every day, which mattered with two kids at home. The new kitchen is the room everyone ends up in now. Worth every week of takeout.
04Custom homes
Building a new house was the biggest decision we’ve ever made, and it never felt rushed. We walked the site most Saturdays and always knew exactly where things stood.
05Basement apartments
We turned the basement into a unit for my mother-in-law. She has her own entrance and her own kitchen, and we still get Sunday dinners. The paperwork I was dreading turned out to be the part I thought about least.
06Additions
We needed more room but didn’t want to leave the street. The second storey went on over the summer, and from the sidewalk you’d think the house was always built that way.
07Bathrooms
One bathroom is a small job for a builder, but they treated it like the whole house. The tile lines up, the door finally closes properly, and they finished the week they said they would.
08Knockdown & rebuild
Our old bungalow wasn’t worth saving, so we took it down and built new on the same lot. They kept the neighbours in the loop from demolition to the final walk-through. We love coming home to it.
09Basements
The basement used to be storage and a furnace. Now it’s a family room the kids actually want to be in. A clear quote, no surprises, and the site was swept every night.
10Kitchens
Third builder we spoke to, and the only one who returned every call. When we changed our minds about the island halfway through, they made it work without any drama.
01 / 10
Projects
Selected work,
inside and out.
Three rooms are done: a kitchen, a basement and a bath. So are two whole homes, a new house and a bungalow.
01Whole-Home Renovations
A bungalow, renewed in limewash.
Windows run floor to ceiling, brick is limewashed, with an oak door to a limestone forecourt and cedar under the eaves.
01 / 05
Gallery
From the street
to the basement.
Tapping a picture shows it whole. Each service is here, from street to basement.Whole homes from the street, then kitchens, bathrooms and basements. Open any picture to see it whole.
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13 pictures: Whole homes · Kitchens · Bathrooms · Basements
Service area
Within an hour
of Burlington.
Towns we build in
- 01BurlingtonHaltonHome base
- 02HamiltonHamiltonby Hwy 403, 15 min, 18 km by road, approximately
- 03OakvilleHaltonby the QEW, 20 min, 24 km by road, approximately
- 04AncasterHamiltonby Hwy 403, 25 min, 28 km by road, approximately
- 05MiltonHaltonby Hwy 407, 30 min, 30 km by road, approximately
- 06MississaugaPeelby Hwy 407 and Hwy 403, 30 min, 41 km by road, approximately
- 07CambridgeWaterloo Regionby Hwy 8 and Hwy 5, 45 min, 51 km by road, approximately
- 08KitchenerWaterloo Regionby Hwy 6 and Hwy 401, 55 min, 72 km by road, approximately
And anywhere else inside the line.
Common questions
Common questions
in Oakville.
What Oakville homeowners ask about whole-home renovations: what it costs, how long it takes and what the city asks for.
The big swings sit in the structure, not the finishes. How far the layout changes, how many load-bearing walls need beams and how many trades work through the house set most of the price. Oakville adds two lot-level items: a designated heritage house goes through heritage review before the building permit, and a lot beside a creek valley, ravine or the lakeshore may need Conservation Halton's permission before exterior excavation. No figure applies until those are known.
Two reviews can come before any work. A designated property needs a heritage permit first, and a house that is only listed does not. A lot regulated by Conservation Halton needs its permission if the job reaches outside the walls. Past those, structural work, the trades and the inspections set the pace, and no duration is quoted before the plans exist.
For most of a whole-home job, yes, and the Town's alteration guidance shows where the line sits. Like-for-like swaps of cabinetry, sinks, faucets and toilets, plus cosmetic surface changes, typically need none. Plumbing fixtures that are added or relocated, and windows that are added or enlarged, do. A whole house usually has some of the second kind, so a permit is the safe assumption, and Hanna Homes puts the application together.
It depends on how the work is ordered. A whole-home renovation passes through every room, so staying means keeping one kitchen and one bathroom working at each stage. Where the work order cannot allow that, moving out for part of it is the alternative.
Which loads it carries and where they go. The beam that replaces it is sized to that load, the work is done under a building permit, and the electrical and plumbing running through the wall are rerouted by the coordinated trades.
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Get a free estimatePeople also ask
Before you build,
people in Oakville ask.
What people in Oakville search before whole-home renovations, answered for the town.
With the layout, because it decides where walls, beams and services go. The permit follows, then structure, the trades, the finishes and the final inspection, with one builder answering for each stage.
A whole-home job is planned as one schedule so nothing is finished twice. A household that needs stages is better served by the room-by-room services, a kitchen, a bathroom or a basement, taken one after another as separate jobs.
With the house's status: whether it is designated or only listed, and whether Conservation Halton regulates the lot. Then comes the wish list for the layout, which decides how much of the structure changes.
Good to know
Good to know
about whole-home renovations in Oakville.
What changes the work in Oakville: the rules, the houses and the ground.
Home renovation permits in Oakville
Town guidance treats a like-for-like swap of cabinetry, sinks, faucets and toilets, and cosmetic changes to surfaces, as typically permit-free. New or enlarged windows, and plumbing fixtures that are added or relocated, fall on the other side of the line. In a whole-home renovation the second group is nearly always present, so the job is scoped with drawings and an application from the start, while finishes that are only replaced add nothing to the review.
Whole home renovation in Oakville: five stages, one builder
Rooms are rearranged and walls opened as one layout for the whole house. Where a load-bearing wall goes, a beam takes its place, installed under permit. The builder schedules electrical, plumbing and HVAC alongside the carpentry, and insulation, drywall, flooring, trim and paint are carried through every room together. Siding and windows join the job where the exterior is included. Hanna Homes is a licensed builder working from Burlington, about 20 minutes' drive from Oakville. The job moves through five stages, permits, structure, trades, finishes and handover, and the same builder answers at each one.
Home renovation contractors in Oakville: beams, trades and the creek review
Which walls move decides most of the budget before any finish is chosen. A wall that carries load needs a beam, and every added trade puts another crew on site. Fixtures that are only replaced add little; relocated ones add permit work, as the Town's alteration list shows. Conservation Halton wants a say on most work near creeks, flood plains, slopes and valley lands, and along the Lake Ontario shoreline, wetlands and hazardous land. On a whole-home job that includes exterior excavation, that review sits in front of the schedule. Houses away from those features skip it.
Source: Conservation Halton: permits
Heritage designation and the Old Oakville district
Heritage status in Oakville comes in two kinds with different consequences. Designation under the Ontario Heritage Act brings a permit requirement for changes, while a listing in the Heritage Register does not. Which of the two a house has decides whether heritage review joins the job. The Old Oakville Heritage Conservation District runs south of Robinson Street to the lakefront, from Sixteen Mile Creek in the west to Allan Street in the east, and its guidelines were updated in 2025. Exterior changes inside it are read against those guidelines, so the boundary is worth checking against your address before design starts.
Other services
Other services,
same builder.
The other whole-home jobs we take on, with the same builder from the first call to handover.
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Walk us throughthe whole house.
Send a floor plan, or a list of the rooms in the job, with the walls you would like gone marked on it.
Licensed builder
Burlington, Ontario
15+ years
Building
300+ houses
Completed