Home Renovation & Laneway House, Vancouver
WEST POINT GREY, VANCOUVER, BC
A full home renovation, rear addition and laneway house in one of Vancouver’s most coveted neighbourhoods — designed to honour a 1920s character home while expressing something genuinely contemporary within it.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Full Home Renovation & Laneway House — West Point Grey, Vancouver
This 1920s character home in West Point Grey had more to give — it simply needed a designer willing to listen before drawing a single line. The homeowners loved their home and neighbourhood deeply, but the original layout had quietly outgrown the way they lived: compartmentalised, a little dark, and unable to accommodate the way their family gathered.
The result is a full home renovation of rare completeness — a 600 sq ft rear addition, a new upper-floor bedroom, a Vancouver laneway house, and an interior reimagined from the ground up around warmth, natural light, and a lifelong love of books. Nothing was added without purpose. Nothing removed without consideration.
TYPE OF PROJECT: Full Home Renovation & Laneway House
LOCATION: West Point Grey, Vancouver, BC
DESIGNER: Leo Chester, Kerr Design Build
STATUS: Completed
SCOPE: Full Renovation · Rear Addition · Laneway House
Renovating a 1920s Character Home in West Point Grey
The guiding idea behind this Vancouver character home renovation was contextual restraint — the harder, more rewarding kind of work. Vancouver is full of 1920s homes demolished or stripped bare in pursuit of a clean white box. Here, the street elevation still reads with quiet authority as a 1920s character home. Step inside or around the back and a confident contemporary home reveals itself — alongside a laneway house designed in a complementary modern idiom that quietly completes the lot.
The family wanted their West Point Grey home to breathe — generous, light, and deeply calm — without surrendering to a single undifferentiated open-plan space. Rooms that open to one another, but deliberately so. A home that feels unmistakably theirs.
Inside the Renovation — Key Design Decisions
The Reading Nook & Book-Lined Wall The heart of the home. Integrated bookshelves woven into a partition wall and a dedicated reading nook — the moment where the brief, the millwork and the light come together with complete conviction. The things this family loves are part of the architecture itself, not arranged on top of it.
The Rear Addition & Home Addition
The Rear Addition & Garden Connection The 600 sq ft rear addition transformed the back of this Vancouver character home entirely. A larger kitchen and living space open directly to the garden through a generous covered deck, flooding rooms that were previously dark with natural light. The connection to the outside that was always there — waiting to be made.
The Vancouver Laneway House
The Vancouver laneway house was designed in a complementary contemporary idiom — its own considered identity that quietly completes the lot. Offering flexibility for extended family, guests, or rental income, it transforms a single-family property into something that can support more than one chapter of life. A laneway house done with the same care and conviction as the main home.
DESIGNER
Designed by Leo Chester — Senior Designer, Kerr Design Build
Leo Chester is a Senior Designer at Kerr Design Build with 29 years of experience designing custom homes and contemporary interiors across Greater Vancouver.
A Walkthrough of the Finished Home — Design Perspective
Nisha and Leo Chester walk through the completed Point Grey Home — room by room, detail by detail. From the book-lined living wall to the rear addition and laneway house, they share the thinking behind every decision that shaped the finished result.
Inside the Point Grey Renovation — The Construction Process
Most people only see the finished result. This footage takes you inside during the build — the framing, the structural planning, and the layout decisions that define how a home actually lives. The work that disappears behind the walls, but shapes everything you see.
Watch the Transformation: Point Grey Home Under Construction
Go behind the walls. This footage follows the Point Grey Home through demolition, framing, and construction — the work that makes the finished result possible but rarely gets shown. A 1920s character home, carefully taken apart and rebuilt into something that will last another century.
Watch More Transformations
Follow along as we document the design and construction process behind our Vancouver projects — custom homes, renovations, and the stories behind them.