A kitchen renovation atelier · Burnaby BC · Est. 2009
We are a small team of seven serving Burnaby, Vancouver and the North Shore. We take on eight kitchens a year so the one we are building is yours — clean dust-walls, Friday photo updates, a five-year written warranty, and no surprises at hand-off.
Nº 01 — Services
Whether your project is a heritage restoration or a single galley, the same in-house crew builds it. We do not subcontract framing, cabinetry or finishing — the same hands that demo your kitchen install the last drawer pull.
01
From CA $85,000 · 9–14 weeks on site
A kitchen designed around how you actually cook. Custom millwork, stone or quartzite counters, integrated appliances, and the unhurried details that make a room feel finished.
If you wait — flooring lifts, cabinet boxes warp at the sink, the rangehood under-vents. None of it is dangerous until the dishwasher leaks at 2am.
02
From CA $110,000 · Pre-1950 homes
Modern function inside a kitchen that still belongs to the house. We coordinate heritage permitting end-to-end, source period-correct hardware, and rebuild plaster to match original profiles.
If you wait — knob-and-tube under the counters, lead in the trim paint, joists notched out for plumbing in 1957. The longer it sits, the more we find when we open the wall.
03
From CA $140,000 · Structural
Open the kitchen to the living room without the awkward bulkhead. Engineered steel, structural sign-off, bifold doors to the garden. We brief the engineer ourselves so the beam disappears flush into the ceiling line.
If you wait — the dropped header gets framed in, the city values the home for the kitchen you have, not the kitchen you wanted. Resale appraisers measure the kitchen first.
04
From CA $42,000 · 5–8 weeks
Condos, galleys, laneway and garden suites. Same drawings, same crew, same dust-wall. We have built more galley kitchens under 70 sq ft than any other contractor on the North Shore — proof small rooms forgive nothing.
If you wait — rental income left on the table, secondary suite non-compliance flagged at refinance, condo strata complaints over hood venting.
Our standing rule
We build eight kitchens a year so the one we are building is yours.
No second job site competing for our crew. No subcontractor with a different idea of "level." When you call on a Tuesday afternoon, the person who answers is the one with a tape measure in your kitchen.
Nº 02 — Selected work
Every kitchen below started at a homeowner's kitchen table with a notebook. Filter by what you are planning — and tap the corner of any image to see it large.
Daniel & the crew · Burnaby Heights job site, May 2025
Nº 03 — The studio
Daniel Aoki spent eight years as an apprentice and journeyman cabinetmaker before founding Hearth & Beam in 2009 — first out of a one-car garage in East Burnaby, then a 2,400 sq ft millwork shop on Boundary Road. We have never grown past seven people because the day we did, we would have to stop building the way we like to build.
The why is simple. Daniel grew up in a small house with a kitchen that worked. His parents cooked in it every night for thirty-one years. That kitchen taught him what good joinery feels like, what a quiet hood sounds like, what it means for a drawer to close exactly right. The work matters to him because he learned, at the kitchen table, that it matters.
The kitchen that defines us
"Our second kitchen. Same house, twenty years later. The first one taught us what we cook; this one had to be the kitchen we cook in for the next twenty. Daniel listened for an hour and then drew it on a napkin. The napkin became the kitchen."
— Margaret & James, Burnaby Heights · Project Nº 142
Nº 04 — How we work · Scroll
01 — The kitchen-table visit
Ninety minutes at your kitchen table. We measure, we listen, we write up a scope summary that same week. No pressure, no commitment.
Free · in-person · across the region
02 — Design, in three drafts
Plans, elevations and a working budget at each draft. Six to eight weeks. Nothing locked until you say it is.
Three meetings · revisable on the spot
03 — Build, one kitchen at a time
Dust-walled before demo. Friday photo updates by 6pm. The same seven people on site every day. No subcontracted crews wandering through.
9–14 weeks · permitting handled by us
04 — Hand-off & the long warranty
As-built drawings, paint codes, appliance manuals. Five-year written workmanship warranty. A six-month walk-back to fix anything that has shifted.
Every project · in writing · since 2009
Nº 05 — Voices
Nº 06 — Journal
Honest writing about what a kitchen renovation actually costs, what the City actually permits, and which trade-offs we recommend to friends.
Permits · 9 min read
The honest answer is "almost always" — and what the City actually checks for when they show up.
Timing · 6 min read
Why a September demo is almost always cheaper than an April one — and what the rainy season costs you.
Resale · 11 min read
From three local appraisers on the record — the kitchen upgrades that lift the appraisal, and the ones that don't.
The free guide
Twenty-eight pages of real Burnaby, Vancouver and North Shore numbers — line-itemed from sixteen recent projects. What a galley actually costs. What a heritage permit actually takes. Where most homeowners get blindsided.
Nº 07 — Contact
Ninety minutes at your home. We bring tape measures and a notebook. You bring questions. We send a written scope summary by the end of the week — no pressure to commit.
4188 Boundary Road, Suite 210
Burnaby, BC V5R 2N7
Design slots — late summer 2026
Build slots — early autumn 2026
Burnaby, Vancouver, North & West Vancouver, New Westminster, parts of Tri-Cities
