Neighbourhoods · Studio Kimi Journal
Aldershot is where Burlington meets the harbour: LaSalle Park, the North Shore, and the streets between the water and Plains Road. This is how we think about redesigning the houses that line them.
Drive along North Shore Boulevard and the harbour is never far away. Turn onto almost any side street and it is the houses: bungalows on wide lots, raised bungalows, side-splits and back-splits, many of them built in the years after the war. Aldershot became part of Burlington in 1958, in the middle of the building boom that filled the city with new family homes, and a lot of those homes still have the rooms they started with.
They were built well, for a different way of living: a kitchen at the back behind a wall, a formal living room at the front, one bathroom for the whole family. Most of that can change without moving. Here is how we approach the houses of the harbour shore, type by type, and what to expect if you are planning work on one.
The houses of the harbour shore
A large share of the neighbourhood is single-family houses from the post-war decades. The bungalow is the most familiar: one storey, a wide front window and a basement below. The raised bungalow lifts the main floor half a level, which gives the lower level bigger windows and makes it far more useful. Side-splits and back-splits stack three or four half-levels, with the bedrooms up a short flight and a family room down another.
Closer to the water, around LaSalle Park and along North Shore Boulevard, the lots get bigger, and older houses sit beside newer custom homes. The park itself, with its marina and a pavilion first built in 1917, is the neighbourhood’s front yard on the bay.
Around Plains Road the mix includes townhouses and condominium suites, and the City is planning for more homes around Aldershot GO while protecting the established streets around it.
The bungalow: open it up, then finish it well
The classic post-war bungalow puts the living room at the front, the kitchen at the back and the bedrooms down a short hall. The wall between the kitchen and the rest of the house is usually the one people want gone, and it is often load-bearing. It can still come out. It needs a beam sized by an engineer and a building permit, and it needs to be drawn before anyone picks up a hammer, so the new opening lines up with the kitchen, the windows and the flooring.
Ceilings are the next question. Some bungalow roofs are framed in a way that lets part of the ceiling be raised or vaulted; others are built with trusses that make it impractical. It is one of the first things we check, because it changes what the main floor can feel like.
At Maple Grove, a 2,500-square-foot bungalow in Oakville, the brief was to make one floor feel open, natural and warm. We opened up the floor plan, ran wide-plank white oak through the main floor, and handled the kitchen, the bathrooms and the lower level as one project, so every room was designed alongside the others.
The other bungalow habit worth breaking is the single bathroom. There is often room to add a second one, or an ensuite, by borrowing a closet or reworking the hall, and it is one of the changes owners notice every day.
Raised bungalows and side-splits: make the half-levels work
Split-level houses have a real advantage. The levels give you separation without long corridors: the bedrooms sit up a short flight, the family room sits down another, and noise from one part of the house reaches the next far less than it does in an open bungalow. The trouble is usually light and flow. The middle level can be dark, the kitchen is often walled off from the living room a few steps away, and each level can end up finished in a different decade.
The fixes are mostly about continuity. Replace a wall at the half-level with an open railing so the kitchen can see the living room. Carry one floor through every level so the stairs belong to the house. Put the most light into the rooms you use most, which in a side-split is usually the kitchen and the family room.
In a raised bungalow, the lower level is the opportunity. Because it sits partly above the ground, it usually has bigger windows than a standard basement, which makes it a strong candidate for a bright family room, a guest suite or, where zoning and the building code allow it, a legal second unit.
Near the water: design for the view and the sun
On the North Shore the view is the point, and the harbour sits to the south, so the rooms that face it get strong sun for much of the day. That is welcome in February and a problem in July. We plan the kitchen and living spaces around the view, then deal with the glare and the heat just as deliberately: window coverings that disappear when they are open, finishes that stand up to direct sun, and a layout that still gives you a shaded place to sit.
Lots near the water or a creek valley can also fall inside areas that Conservation Halton regulates. If yours does, work such as an addition, a deck or a new retaining wall may need their permission as well as a City building permit. Their online map shows the approximate regulated areas, and it is worth checking before the design goes too far. The City side of the process is covered in our Burlington renovation permit guide.
Plains Road and the new suites
Not every harbour-shore home is a house. For owners of a townhouse or a condominium suite around Plains Road, the design problem is space: rooms that have to do two jobs, storage that has to be built in, and a kitchen that has to work hard without taking over the room.
It is the same problem we are solving at Pearl, a four-storey residential building in downtown Burlington that is in design now. Each suite kitchen centres on a stone island with integrated oak cabinetry, the living rooms are anchored by a built-in media wall, and the bathrooms use large-format tile, a floating vanity and matte-black fixtures. Pearl sits downtown rather than on the harbour, but the thinking carries straight over to a suite on Plains Road. If you are planning work inside a condominium, start with our condo renovation guide.
Renovate, add a storey, or start again?
On the bigger lots near the water, the question is often whether to renovate what is there, add a second storey, or rebuild. There is no general answer. It depends on the structure you have, what the zoning allows on your lot, whether Conservation Halton is involved, and what you want the house to do for the next twenty years. A second storey on a bungalow can roughly double the living space without giving up the garden, and our guide to second-storey additions explains what it involves.
We answer it on paper first. A site visit, measured drawings of the existing house and a design that shows the finished rooms all come before any decision about walls or foundations, so the choice is made with the full picture in front of you. That is how we work on every project, and our interior design in Burlington page shows how it applies across the city.
Our studio is in Oakville, a short drive east. If you own one of these houses and are wondering what it could become, we would be glad to walk through it with you.
Common questions
What is a side-split house?
A side-split is a split-level house whose levels step sideways across the front. You come in on the main level, where the kitchen and living room usually sit, then go up half a flight to the bedrooms or down half a flight to a family room. A back-split does the same thing from front to back, so from the street it can look like a bungalow.
Can you open up the kitchen in a post-war bungalow?
Usually, yes. The wall between the kitchen and the living or dining room is often load-bearing, so it comes out with a beam sized by an engineer and a building permit from the City. We draw the new layout, the beam and the finishes before anything is demolished, so you know what the finished room will look like and what it involves.
Is a raised bungalow worth renovating?
Often it is. The lower level sits partly above the ground and usually has bigger windows than a standard basement, so it can become a bright family room, a guest suite or, where zoning and the building code allow it, a second unit. The main floor above opens up the same way any bungalow does.
Do I need a Conservation Halton permit to renovate near the water?
Only if your property sits in an area Conservation Halton regulates, which includes the Lake Ontario shoreline, valley lands and land along watercourses. Their online map shows the approximate regulated areas, and their staff confirm whether your work needs a permit. It is needed in addition to the City’s building permit, not instead of it.
Do you take on projects in Aldershot and on the North Shore?
Yes. Aldershot and the North Shore are part of the Burlington area we serve from our Oakville studio. Our Burlington work includes Pearl, a four-storey residential building downtown that is in design now.