Renovation and Suite Design

Alongside our custom home design work, Inertia also designs additions, major renovations, secondary suites and laneway houses. Our directors, and many of our staff, have at some point been employed by builders and have a strong understanding of how to make our client’s wish lists a reality.

Design Process

In our initial meetings with you, we discuss your goals, the scale of the your project, the opportunities and limitations of your building site, and the project budget.

We will also ask you to collect images that describe what they are looking for, and to make notes about what you like about each image. We recommend that you use sites such as houzz or pinterest for this.

We will gather the existing (as-built) measurements of your building and site and prepare initial design plans that achieve your desired outcome. Once these plans meet your satisfaction, your project will take on three dimensions. Our 3D design software allows us to create perspective views and bring your design to life.

Permitting

With the design complete, we will begin to work with the municipality to gain permission to develop your project. This process starts with us creating a development permit package and submitting it. We then take the lead in guiding you through the process of getting development approval. Depending on the complexity of the project, this can involve negotiations with other stakeholders such as affected neighbours, utility companies, and internal municipal departments.

Construction Drawings

Development approval in place, Inertia will complete the construction documents. During this phase we will coordinate with you, your builder, materials suppliers, and engineers to ensure that we prepare a complete set of drawings for your construction team to build from. This set of drawings forms the key part of the building permit submission that either you or your builder can confidently submit to the local municipality for a building permit approval.

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