From custom home builds to whole home renovations and major home additions, Toronto, Ontario’s Glenaden Homes approaches each project with integrity, intention, and open communication, meticulously and carefully constructed through collaborations with professionals who aim to achieve the same exceptional outcome.
Understanding that space is always at a premium, both remodels and custom builds are planned for maximum functionality. The Glenaden Homes team guides clients to make informed choices that unlock their family’s style and meet their needs through options that create a home that is contemporary, energy-efficient, quiet, smart, and secure.
Honest and open communication at every step of the building and remodelling process means homeowners have full access to their project’s schedule, budget updates, daily progress reports, and decision-making tools thanks to Glenaden Homes’s cutting-edge software. Clients remain completely involved and informed wherever they are, guaranteeing peace of mind and confidence in the development of their dream home.
Owner-operator Daniel Burrows began modestly, obtaining a temporary position at a framing firm after graduating from university while deciding what to do for a living. He oversaw his own framing crew a year later, and soon after—thanks to his innate fascination and overall talent for “all things construction”—a builder he was working with hired him as a site supervisor and project organizer for several significant restorations in an exclusive area of Toronto.
“I started a contracting business because taking what I’ve learned through my education and framing just seemed like the obvious next step,” Burrows says. “Framing teaches you all the aspects of the build. As a framer, you go in and build the footings, which is the first thing you do for a house. You understand why you’re doing it, and who’s coming up after you.”
After discovering his passion, Burrows launched his own construction business and has been renovating houses and establishing a respectable company for more than 20 years. In turn, clients, architects, and designers continue to recommend Glenaden Homes because of its dedication to honesty, integrity, and high-quality service.
After 20 years of project management and operational process experience for F1000 technology businesses, Vicki Rollins joined Glenaden Homes in 2016, making the fulfilling transition from high-tech, Fortune 500 companies to residential building, helping clients realize their visions and goals. To keep projects on schedule and within budget, her objective is to continuously enhance project discipline and procedure.
“Construction is known for being chaotic; maybe you know stories about people not hearing from their contractor, not knowing what’s coming up next, being rushed to make decisions,” she says. “That’s just not the background I come from, so I quickly put some process, rigour, and systems into place around how we run our projects.”
This means Glenaden Homes employs very robust processes in how it manages projects, using construction software that gives homeowners, trades, architects, and designers access to the project portal where they can see a detailed day-by-day schedule. If clients can’t get to the job site personally, they can still receive frequent updates during the week.
“We do bi-weekly site meetings, and the portal also tracks their budget,” Rollins adds. “We have pretty detailed budgets for our clients, and we help them manage those.”
There’s a change order process, file repository, and everything that comes from the designer in terms of doors, trim profiles, crown moulding details, paint schedules, and tile layouts, all laid out coherently to ensure the process is easy to view and follow.
Working primarily in the west end of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), over the years Glenaden Homes has elevated its offering to service discerning, luxury-minded clients. “We do a lot of major structural and complex renovations because there’s not a lot of barren land in Toronto,” Rollins explains. “Most people, due to limitations with the city, find it easier to renovate an existing house versus a new build.”
Burrows’ structural background in particular helps in those aspects, and he’s been sought after by certain architects who have complex renovations and trust him with that work. “Probably one of the biggest differences we find in our space, with builders we’re competing against, is there are a lot of strictly management companies at our level,” Burrows says. “I can’t call myself a master builder, but I have all the traits, knowing about every aspect of a build: how to wire, how to tile, how to do the trim, and pulling out the details in architectural and designer drawings.”
Very quickly, Burrows started working with an architect/designer, Rollins tells us, learning how to execute the quality finishes that many clients expect. And those clients often have very particular specifications, with each project presenting its own unique details and complications that Glenaden Homes needs to solve for.
“Everything we do is custom finished for the client, so there’s no A, B, or C tile package to choose from or a builder’s grade kitchen package,” says Rollins. “For our clients, the world is their oyster when they’re selecting their finishes, and then we work with them and their design team to find unique details.” These details can include glass floors, elevators, and saunas, to name a few.
Keeping these requirements on track and on budget is key for Glenaden Homes when it comes to servicing its many clients who expect top-notch quality service from beginning to end. “One of our customers, who’s a lawyer, had a client complain about how they didn’t know what was going with their reno,” says Rollins. “Our client pulled up his own project portal and said, ‘Here’s my schedule. I know everything that’s happening next week.’”
Indeed, Glenaden Homes’s rigorous step-by-step process (starting with pre-construction, which could take anywhere from two or three months to six months, depending on the size of the project) stresses the importance of making all the interior design decisions for the project ahead of time to ensure ease and satisfaction. “We have all the details, so once projects start, clients aren’t stressed making decisions, and we have a good handle on everything,” says Rollins. “We make sure we order products and materials with long lead times on time, so we don’t have any hiccups.”
To be sure, reducing stress during a potentially hectic time is something the Glenaden Homes team prides itself on. “We keep open lines of communication through various means as much as possible,” Rollins shares. “We try not to be shy about things; we never have a client calling us to ask what’s happening. Never. It doesn’t happen.”
The Glenaden Homes team is also passionate about working with designers who have distinctive visions and ideas for a project, while understanding and trying to stay in their own lane as much as possible. “We’re the implementation team, and working with architects and designers, we understand and appreciate everyone’s value,” says Burrows. “It makes it fun for us. If we were in design-build, we wouldn’t be introduced to some of the unique details we’ve executed. We are happy to work with different architects and designers that homeowners have chosen, and then they come to us, so we get to implement lots of different ideas.”
Along with ensuring customer satisfaction, Glenaden Homes’s commitment to superior quality is imperative, and this stems in part from working with designers. “They all want their product to be Instagram-worthy and photographable to the point where they can highlight their work, and so we keep that close to our hearts,” Burrows says. “We want it to look as close to what the designer wants as possible so they can brag about their work, and then we can quietly brag in the background,” he laughs.
Glenaden Homes also strives to select first-rate craftspeople for its subtrades, utilizing robust quality assurance processes and bringing both the designers and homeowners in throughout the process so everybody sees what’s happening. This commitment has paid off in numerous ways. While the company has been a member of BILD for several years now, this was the first year it decided to put some of its projects into the ring for the organization’s RenoMark™ awards.
“We were thrilled to find out we placed in the top three finalists for both of the projects we submitted,” says Rollins. “We didn’t win, but to be a top finalist the first time you submit two of your projects was very rewarding.”
In the renovation world, challenges are numerous, particularly when it comes to constantly “digging up the unknown.” This is when it becomes vital to be able to shift and pivot, says Burrows. “We see it time and time again; we make assumptions on how things are put together, and it’s just not that way,” he says. “Then you have to have the wherewithal to say, ‘we’re not going in this direction now, we’re going in this direction,’ and not lose time.”
While it comes to renovations, you never know what you’re going to find when you start “peeling back the layers,” he adds. “We’re always problem-solving because of that.”
Looking ahead, he says that Glenaden Homes hopes to be continually challenged. “If we can have projects that keep getting more interesting and exciting, like how it’s been so far, we’ll be happy,” he says.
And keeping clients happy means staying the course with the company’s trademark dedication to organization and communication. “Having a process in place is definitely something that helps us,” Burrows says. “We have a tight project management process, and we also have high-quality customers.”
Glenaden Homes also works from a solid trade pool, aiming to use the same trades for every project, ones who appreciate the company’s vision and goals. “Everyone knows what we’re all gunning for,” Burrows says. “We appreciate finer things.”
Rollins agrees. “All of our crews and trades really take pride in what they do, and that’s important. When you’re doing something like this, it’s important to have that coming from everybody involved in the project.”
Essentially, it takes more than skill to build a house: creativity, passion, commitment, and organization all come together to create a rewarding result. “You’re always problem-solving,” says Rollins. “No two days are alike, but I think our process helps make them not chaotic.”
