Peach Boy Residence

Peach Boy Residence is a renovation and addition above a storefront on Toronto’s Roncesvalles Avenue. Our clients own Peach Boy, the children’s shop on the ground floor, but the apartment above was too small for a family home. The renovation reworked that apartment as the main floor of a new two-storey residence, and the addition created an entirely new floor as the upper level.

To bring light and flow to the narrow floor plan, the main event is an airy, skylight-filled staircase with open risers and perforated metal railings. The result is a warm, serene family home with front and rear decks, sitting just above the vibrant main-street atmosphere of the neighbourhood.

The addition was built over the existing roof, so the store below stayed open and dry for the entire build. Only afterward was the old roof removed, connecting the two levels of the new home.

The residence spans 1,900 square feet over two levels. The front door opens from the main street, beside the shop, with a stair leading up to the main floor of the home. The layout runs front to back: living room at the front, dining in the middle, and kitchen at the back, which opens onto a rear deck with stairs down to the backyard and garage.

A wall of white oak millwork runs the length of the floor, holding the entry closet, storage, and a powder room hidden behind a custom door that reads as one more cabinet.

The strategy of framing the new upper floor above the old roofline, before that roof came out, left the main level with soaring 12-foot ceilings. The height gives the narrow plan an open, loft-like feel and made room to conceal most of the home’s ductwork.

The tall ceiling also called for an unusually long staircase to reach the new upper level. In response, the stair was designed as a feature: a sculptural steel piece, painted white with oak treads and handrails, rising beneath a pair of skylights that send daylight down through its open structure.

Upstairs are three bedrooms, two baths, and laundry. The front bedroom opens to a balcony over the avenue, and the primary bedroom sits more quietly at the rear.

The sequence of construction was planned around keeping the store open and dry. First, the brick party walls on either side were built up by two feet into taller, waterproofed parapets. The next spring, a new floor was framed right across them, working backwards from the highest point of the old sloping roof. Steel joists were needed because the new structure is offset from the bearing wall below.

The third-storey walls went up next. The south wall sits tight against the neighbour’s wall but could not be shared, so this fully independent wall was insulated and air-sealed flat on the deck, then tipped up into place. With a new flat roof built and the ends closed off, the addition formed a watertight hat over the building. Only then did a demo crew remove the old roof from below.

Along the way, the loose front parapet was rebuilt behind scaffolding on the main street, and the stepped-down floor of an early-2000s rear addition was levelled for continuous new flooring. The ground floor shop was barely touched; a single drain through the ceiling was the only intrusion. The finished home is all-electric, running on one heat pump, within a tight, well-insulated envelope.

North Arrow, who had built out the Peach Boy store years earlier, returned to construct the home above. The framing followed a precise, unusual sequence, and they took it on themselves rather than subcontracting it. As skilled in fine millwork as in construction, they also crafted all the cabinetry, including the hidden powder room.

Photography: Kira Noel Photography
Builder: North Arrow Limited
Structural: Contact Engineering
Mechanical: ReNü Engineering
Interiors: Lauren Reed