What it's actually like building a custom laneway house (East Van, 2024-2025)
We bought a 1910s house in Kensington-Cedar Cottage with an equally old—but much less loved—garage on it. The foundation/slab damage put it beyond repair. It sat next to a beautiful and established garden, but only a tree and a rhubarb plant made it through demo.
After conversation with my in-laws we decided to build a laneway house in early 2024. My wife was due later that year so having parents close by made sense. My in-laws are in Ontario and helped finance the laneway as their future home, using a mix of cash and a construction loan.
We toured a few builders' active sites before choosing one. The tidiness and organization of the jobsites told us more than the sales pitch did. In the end we chose Smallworks for the design and construction.
Design took about 5 months, five meetings, working through floorplan first, then finishes. Because the build was fixed-price, anything outside their standard catalogue counted as an "upgrade." Our designer said that phrase so often it became a running joke in our house.
Permits from the City of Vancouver took 6 weeks, way faster than the multi-year horror stories we'd heard about for.
Construction started in November 2024. Things moved fast: tree barriers, sewer scoping, excavator on site. My wife's water broke that same week, so we spent a couple days at the hospital and came back to find the garage gone, 4 feet of earth removed, and foundations going in. The slab took until the end of 2024, and they built the house itself in January. The house was framed from prefab panels, and went from flat to fully framed in 2 days, which was surreal to watch.
Electrical and plumbing went in by February, drywall by March, floors by May. We were tracking the original 32-week timeline until siding (one of our upgrades) shipped from Finland hit a delay. A few small site decisions had to be made, mostly HVAC clearance issues, including one pocket door that had to be converted because the HRV duct needed that wall. We had two change orders, one was a toilet upgrade that the in-laws realised they needed in the nick of time.
The construction manager was the best part of the whole process. Even-keeled, checked the site weekly including weekends, made a stressful process feel controlled.
Landscaping was the low point. Our designer made a basic plan as per the city's requirements, so most calls got made last-minute. The landscaping contractors were affordable but rigid, open to input during the initial walkthrough and then not really after that. The result was a fence that didn't meet my neighbours expectations, and they refused to split the bill. My neighbour and the landscaper haven't spoken since.
The landscapers did a reasonably good job otherwise. They got a huge amount of work done fast, credit where due, but this was the most stressful stretch of the whole build.
Handover was in September 2025. The team walked us through every system, caught a few paint touch-ups. I flagged one issue myself and was told it was fine. It wasn't and needed to be fixed by the contractor later on. Lesson learned there: if something looks off at handover, trust that instinct and follow up anyway, even if you're told not to worry about it.
Almost a year in now, everything's held up well. The neighbour relationship recovered. Our kid runs around the shared backyard. My in-laws have a cozy spot when they're in town, and it doubles as a home office and guest room when they're not.
It was genuinely one of the more meaningful projects I've been part of. Feel free to ask me anything about any stage of it.