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 Burlington
Home renovation in Burlington that treats the house as one job. The structure goes in first and the services are inspected before any room is closed up, so no room is finished twice.
- Years building
- 15+
- Houses completed
- 300+
- Rated
- 5★
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
Which walls come out and which rooms open into each other is decided for the whole floor plan first; beams and pipes follow it.
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
The builder books each trade and holds the schedule, so the rough-ins for the whole house are inspected before any room is closed.
Insulation, drywall, flooring, trim and paint throughout
Each finish runs through the whole house in one pass, so a room is not finished and then reopened for the next trade.
Siding and windows, as part of the whole
Where the outside is in the job, siding and windows are done within the same project, so the exterior is not a second one later.
How it runs
The whole frame,
stage by stage.
Five stages in the same order for a room and a whole house, with one builder answering for each.
- 01
Permits
The building permit for the walls and structure that move, filed before any wall is opened.
- 02
Structure
Walls come out and beams go in across the house, then the new layout is framed.
- 03
Trades
Rough-ins share the open walls, so the builder orders the trades and inspections follow.
- 04
Finishes
Insulation and drywall, then flooring, trim and paint, carried through every room together.
- 05
Handover
Final inspection once every room is done, then handover of the finished house.
Why Hanna Homes
Why one builder
for all of it.
What a job across the whole house depends on, and how one builder holds it together.
Layout, structure, services and finishes are sequenced on a single plan, so a room is not opened a second time for the next trade.
Beams are set and left open for inspection before any drywall goes up, so no finish goes over work that has not been inspected.
Wiring, pipes and ducts cross in the same open walls, so the builder books them in the order the inspections can follow.
Material in the walls and ceilings the plan opens is examined first, so a finding is built into the order of rooms before the trades are booked.
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.
Two whole homes and three rooms, each one finished: a bungalow, a new house, a kitchen, a bath and a basement.
01Whole-Home Renovations
A bungalow, renewed in limewash.
Limewashed brick, cedar under the eaves, windows floor to ceiling and an oak door onto a limestone forecourt.
01 / 05
Gallery
From the street
to the basement.
Every service, from the street to the basement. Tap a picture to see it whole.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
about whole-home renovations.
What people ask about whole-home renovations first, then about Hanna Homes itself. The short answer is on every line.
Three things move the cost most: how many rooms are in the job, which walls move or get a beam, and how many trades overlap in the same walls. Replacing services, running finishes through every room and bringing in siding and windows each add to it.
Inspections set the schedule. A whole house has several: the approvals ahead of the permit, the beam, the plumbing and electrical rough-ins, then the final one. Each holds the next stage until it is signed off, and the number of rooms in the job decides how much work sits between them.
Yes. Ontario requires a building permit to renovate, and a whole-home job moves walls or structure, and often a plumbing fixture, which puts that change under the permit too. Electrical is separate: a building permit is not an electrical notification, and the electrical contractor files that one.
A beam sized for the load the wall carried, set under the building permit. Anything built around it, drywall and trim included, waits until the inspector has seen the beam uncovered.
Yes. Siding and windows can sit in the same project as the interior, so the outside is built once to match the new layout instead of as a separate job after the inside is done. Windows sit in walls the layout may change, so they are chosen with it, not after.
Yes. Hanna Homes Construction is a licensed builder, and the same licensed builder takes on the whole project, whether it is one room, a whole home or a new house.
Hanna Homes Construction is based in Burlington and builds within about an hour's drive of it, in places including Hamilton, Oakville, Ancaster, Milton, Mississauga, Cambridge and Kitchener. If your house is close to that drive but not on the list, ask.
Call Hanna Homes Construction on (519) 897-8564 and say where the house is and what you have in mind: a room, an addition, a whole-home renovation or a new house. That first call is where a project starts.
Still have a question?
Get a free estimatePeople also ask
Before you build,
people also ask.
What people search before whole-home renovations, answered by the builder.
The builder does. In a whole house the electrical, plumbing and HVAC rough-ins share the same walls, so the builder sets the order they go in. The electrical contractor, not the builder, files the ESA notification and requests the electrical inspections.
Often they do. Removing walls changes the routes ducts can take, and the bulkheads and soffits that hide them are held to minimum ceiling heights under the building code. The duct runs are worked out with the new layout before the beams and framing go in.
Yes. An inspection is required before occupancy, and a final inspection closes the building permit. On a whole-house job the handover is tied to that sign-off, so the last rooms are not handed over before it.
Good to know
Good to know
about whole-home renovations in Burlington.
Home renovations in Burlington run on approvals and sequence: what the City asks for before the permit, and what an older house needs checked before walls open.
Home renovation permits in Burlington
A renovation permit in Burlington is not the first application. Interior renovations need Pre-Building Approval from the City’s Community Planning Department as well as the permit application, so that approval sits ahead of the permit on the schedule and the walls wait on both.
Once the plans are filed, the work runs on two tracks. The building permit covers the walls and structure that move, and the municipality inspects at set stages, with nothing covered until each stage is reviewed. Electrical work is notified separately and has inspections of its own. The builder keeps both tracks moving so neither one holds up a room.
One sequence across the whole house
The floor plan is fixed before anything is roughed in. The electrical rough-in inspection happens once every circuit and box is installed, so moving a wall afterwards means reworking wiring that was already inspected. Insulation and drywall then wait for the inspections, house-wide.
One change can add a day the crew does not control. When the job upgrades, relocates or replaces the electrical service, the utility has to disconnect the power. That visit goes on the schedule early, and the house is without power for that stretch.
Source: ESA: what you need to know
Older home renovations in Burlington
In an older house the finished walls and ceilings hide what the new layout has to meet. Ontario’s asbestos regulation asks the owner to have material likely to be disturbed examined before it is, so the walls the plan opens are the ones examined.
A renovation is opened wall by wall, not all at once, so a finding in one place can reorder the rough-ins and the drywall that follow house-wide. The report comes before the trades are booked, and the order of rooms is set around it.
Source: Ontario: asbestos on construction projects regulation
Taking out a load-bearing wall
A load-bearing wall carries the weight above it, so it is the first structural decision in the job: the rough-ins are laid out around wherever the beams land. The beam stays uncovered until the structure is inspected, and drywall and trim around it wait for that sign-off.
A wall rarely carries load alone. The electrical, plumbing and HVAC that run through it belong to the trades the builder coordinates, and their work is inspected with the rest of the rough-in before the wall is closed.
Other services
Other services,
same builder.
The other whole-home jobs we take on, with the same builder from the first call to handover.
All services
Get a free estimate
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