The Be Leaf Renovation Team

You will often hear that a bathroom takes “two to three weeks.” Almost nobody shows you what those weeks actually contain — which days are loud, which days look like nothing happened, and where the schedule can slip. So we logged one of our own projects, day by day, exactly as it went: a full 4-piece renovation in Kanata, planned at 15 working days. Below is the whole thing — including the day we lost to an inspection, the hidden leak under the old shower, and the morning the glass did not...

Five contractor scams Ottawa homeowners keep falling for — how each one works, what Ontario law actually protects you from, and a 10-point checklist that makes you a hard target.

Short answer: if your renovation moves plumbing, changes wiring, alters a wall, or turns a room into a bathroom, you need a building permit from the City of Ottawa. If you are only replacing finishes and fixtures in their existing locations, you generally don't. That single distinction — are you changing the systems, or just what you can see? — decides most bathroom projects in this city. Below is what actually triggers a permit, what the process looks like, and one thing that catches out...