Before and After: 5 Incredible Home Renos

Gorgeous transformations to inspire your next home makeover.

1. Fresh Faced

This 1972 home in Vancouver’s Mackenzie Heights neighbourhood was cold, dark and closed-off. But thanks to Cedric Burgers of Burgers Architecture, the home’s original structure was preserved—and brought into the 21st century with frameless, triple-paned angled windows and charcoal cedar siding. See the full reno here.

2. Dug Out

Before its transformation, this house was a standard 1920s one-and-a-half-storey of about 1,400 square feet. The renovation, done by Carscadden Stokes McDonald Architects, involved jacking up the house and filling in the excavation, then building a new ground floor that’s 12 feet tall—it was all about filling the house with natural light and connecting indoors and out. See the full reno here.

3. Lofty Ambitions

The homeowners had their own ideas for this loft renovation, but it was designer Stephanie Brown who brought it all to life, creating a French-inspired atrium/“refuge-zone” (think crisp white walls, oversized sofas and iron-framed glass walls that create a sound barrier from the rest of the house). See the full reno here.

4. Split Decision

Aside from its split-level floor plan, this home had nothing the homeowners were originally looking for. It took four months of renovations (tearing down non-structural walls, replacing dated carpeting)—and help from designer Ami McKay—for it to finally become a warm, modern family home. See the full reno here.

5. Take Two

Jennifer and John Nelson were convinced they had outgrown this home in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood, but designer Kelly Deck was able to change their minds: “It already had great bones and was in a neighbourhood they loved,” she recalls. “We just had to make it more modern and polished.” It was nothing a cool palette of whites, greys and deep blues couldn’t fix. See the full reno here.