The Firm We Recommend A Small Team, Design and Build Together

Purpose Built Designs is a design build firm working across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. They describe their own approach as globally sourced finishes, locally crafted, and their work covers high-end renovations and new homes.

It is run by Ryan and Kathy Mach and it is a small team. We are naming that deliberately, because it is the most useful thing you can know about them before you call. On a small team the person who takes your first conversation is involved in your project, and the design and the build are not handed between departments. The trade-off is capacity: a small firm takes on fewer projects at once, so timing matters and you should ask about availability early rather than assuming a start date.

The services they list are whole-house renovations, kitchens, bathrooms, basements, custom homes from first drawings through to move-in, and interior design covering layouts, cabinetry, lighting and finishes, planned in three dimensions so you can see the result before committing to it.

They offer a consultation with Ryan Mach before you commit to anything, which is the right way to use them. A conversation about whether what you want is possible in the space you have, and roughly what it involves, costs you nothing and will tell you more than any amount of reading.

The sections that follow describe what each kind of project involves and what to establish before you start. Everything in them applies whichever firm you hire.

A kitchen is the room where design and construction are least separable, which is why it is the clearest argument for a design build firm. The cabinetry has to fit the space that exists, the appliances have to fit the cabinetry, the services have to reach where the appliances are going, and the stone has to be templated against what was actually built rather than what was drawn.

Purpose Built Designs handle kitchens as layout, cabinetry, stone and lighting together. That grouping is the right one, and it is worth understanding why. Lighting in particular is the element most often added at the end as an afterthought, and it is the element that most determines whether a finished kitchen looks like the drawing. Task lighting, under-cabinet lighting and the ceiling plan all have to be decided while the ceiling is open.

The question to settle before anything is ordered is whether you are changing the layout or keeping it. Keeping the layout and replacing everything in place is a materially different project from moving the sink, the range or a wall, because the second brings plumbing, ventilation and sometimes structure into play. People often discover which project they are doing after they have already budgeted for the other one.

Being able to see it in three dimensions before committing matters more in a kitchen than anywhere else, because a plan view does not tell you how a run of cabinets feels or whether an island leaves enough room to open a dishwasher with someone standing behind it. Ask to see the design modelled rather than drawn flat.

One honest note if you are selling rather than staying: a full kitchen rebuild is usually the weakest pre-sale investment available, and our guide to renovating before selling explains why. Build the kitchen you want if you are the one going to use it.

The Question We Are Asked Most A Self-Contained Lower Level Is a Regulatory Project First

The single most common renovation question we get in York Region comes from multigenerational households, and it is some version of this: can our basement become a self-contained space with its own kitchen and entrance, so that parents or adult children have independence without anyone moving out.

The answer is almost always that it depends on the regulations before it depends on the design, and that order is the thing people get backwards. A self-contained suite is not a finished basement with a kitchenette added. Where it constitutes a second dwelling unit it engages municipal zoning, the building code and fire separation requirements, and the things that determine feasibility are unglamorous: ceiling height, window sizes and egress, a separate entrance, fire separation between units, and parking.

Those requirements differ between Richmond Hill, Markham and other municipalities, and they change. Nothing on this page should be used to decide whether your basement qualifies. The feasibility answer comes from your municipality and from a firm that has done the work there, before any money goes into drawings.

Purpose Built Designs list basements among their services, and a design build firm is the right structure for this kind of project specifically because feasibility, design and construction are so tightly connected: a ceiling height or an egress window determines the layout, and the layout determines everything else. Ask them directly about their experience with self-contained suites and with your municipality, because that specific experience matters more here than general renovation skill.

Why this is worth doing properly rather than informally. An unpermitted second unit creates problems with insurance, with a future sale and potentially with the municipality, and those problems surface at the worst possible moment. Our guide to renovation permits in Richmond Hill and Markham covers the process.

If the alternative you are weighing is buying a different house that already works for the whole family, that is a comparison we can run against the renovation, and our guide to multigenerational living in Richmond Hill and Markham sets out both paths.

Apply These to Purpose Built Designs Too Ten Questions, and Permits Is the One That Matters Most

1. Do you pull the permits. The answer should be yes as a matter of routine. A firm that offers to avoid permits is offering you a saving you will pay for during a future sale, an insurance claim or a municipal inspection. This is the single most important question on the list.

2. Are you insured, and can I see the certificate. Liability coverage and workers' compensation coverage, current, in writing.

3. Who is licensed for the plumbing, electrical and gas work, and are they employees or subtrades you have worked with repeatedly.

4. What is in the quote and what is an allowance. Allowances are where quotes diverge from final costs, and comparing two quotes without knowing which allowances each one contains tells you nothing.

5. How are changes handled, priced and approved once work is underway.

6. What is the payment schedule, and what is the deposit relative to the total. Be wary of a large payment demanded before any work begins.

7. Can I see two recent projects like mine and speak to those homeowners, including one where something went wrong. Every firm has one. The useful question is how it was resolved.

8. Who is on site day to day, and who do I contact when there is a problem.

9. What is your current availability, which matters particularly with a small firm.

10. Get at least three written quotes with comparable scope, and read the scope rather than the headline figure. That applies to Purpose Built Designs as much as to anyone else, and we would say the same thing if you asked us about our own services.

1. Decide what the renovation is for. To live in, or to sell. The answer changes every subsequent decision, because renovating for yourself rewards your own preferences and renovating for a sale rewards the opposite.

2. If selling is anywhere in the plan, have the real estate conversation first. What level of finish the street supports, what the comparables reward, and whether the work is warranted at all. This is an hour and it has stopped a number of our clients from spending badly.

3. Establish feasibility before design, particularly for a lower level suite or anything structural. Municipality first, drawings second. Paying for a design that regulations will not permit is the most avoidable cost in this whole process.

4. Take the consultation. Purpose Built Designs offer a consultation with Ryan Mach before you commit, and that conversation will tell you whether what you have in mind is possible in your space and roughly what it involves. Use it.

5. Then get your three quotes with comparable scope, apply the ten questions, check the insurance, and decide. Not before.