Condo Renovation Cost in Vaughan: 2026 Price Guide

As of 2026, a Vaughan condo renovation starts around $15,000 for a single-room scope — one bathroom, or new flooring and paint through a compact unit — while a full-unit renovation with a new kitchen, bathroom, flooring, and lighting typically lands between $70,000 and $120,000. Luxury gut renovations of larger suites run past $150,000. Vaughan tracks closely with condo renovation costs across Toronto; the bigger variable here is the building itself.

• Single-area refresh (one bathroom, or flooring and paint): $15,000–$25,000
• Kitchen replaced within the existing layout: $25,000–$40,000
• Full-unit renovation, roughly 700–900 sq ft: $70,000–$120,000
• Luxury gut with layout changes: $150,000+

What pushes a project up or down inside those bands is predictable: how much of the kitchen budget goes to cabinetry, whether the bathroom keeps its layout, and how strict your building's rules are about hours and elevator access. Finishes move the number less than most owners expect; scope and logistics move it more.

Quotes are almost always pre-tax, and Ontario's 13% HST applies to renovation contracts — confirm before you compare numbers. Carry a 10–20% contingency too. Condo surprises are smaller than century-house surprises, but board conditions and elevator delays eat money the same way hidden rot does.

Most towers around the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre went up within the last decade, so nothing in them is worn out. What owners ask us for is an upgrade on builder-grade: the thin laminate floor, the standard-issue kitchen, the single ceiling fixture doing all the work in the living room.

This is the friendliest condo scope there is. Swapping builder laminate for quality vinyl plank runs $4–$9 per square foot installed, plus $2–$4 per square foot for the acoustic underlay almost every corporation requires before approving hard flooring. A quartz counter and new backsplash sharpen the kitchen without touching plumbing — typical kitchen counters run $3,200–$6,500 installed, backsplashes $800–$2,500. Because the ceilings are concrete slab, adding pot lights is rarely practical; we work with track lighting, surface fixtures, and under-cabinet strips instead. A realistic all-in for this kind of refresh is $15,000–$40,000, depending on how far the kitchen goes.

Thornhill's Vaughan side built up through the 1980s and 90s, and its condo stock shows it: original oak kitchens, almond-toned bathrooms, dropped bulkheads, parquet or first-generation laminate underfoot. Units like these usually justify a full-unit renovation rather than a cosmetic pass.

A representative 700 sq ft full-unit project breaks down roughly like this: demolition around $4,000, plumbing and electrical updates $8,000, kitchen $32,000, bathroom $18,000, flooring $9,000, painting $4,500, with project management, permits, and board-approval costs adding about $7,500, and contingency plus elevator fees another $7,000. That is how a ninety-thousand-dollar condo renovation actually gets spent.

One flag for buildings finished between 1995 and 2007: Kitec plumbing. It is the orange-and-blue flexible pipe with brass fittings, and it was common in GTA condos of that window. The class-action settlement is closed, so replacement is now out-of-pocket — worth checking while a renovated bathroom wall is open, because redoing tile later costs far more than swapping pipe now. Your property manager or a look under the kitchen sink usually answers the question in five minutes.

Effectively every Vaughan condo corporation requires written approval before renovation work starts, and the process typically takes 4–10 weeks. Newer VMC-area corporations usually hand you a standardized alteration package with clear rules. Established Thornhill corporations vary more — some have detailed renovation policies, others handle requests one board meeting at a time, which stretches the wait.

Expect the application to require scope drawings, a construction schedule, your contractor's insurance certificate showing $2M–$5M in commercial general liability with the corporation named as additional insured, and WSIB clearance. Many buildings also hold a refundable damage deposit of $1,000–$5,000 against the common elements. None of this is optional, and boards do reject incomplete packages. The approval stage is also where you learn what you cannot change in a condo renovation — plumbing stacks, structural elements, and anything past your unit boundary stay put.

Condo work carries costs a detached house never sees. Service-elevator bookings run $200–$500 per day, and across a full-unit renovation, material handling can total $3,000–$8,000. Work hours are typically Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., no weekends or holidays — which stretches schedules 20–30% compared with the same scope in a freehold house. Add corridor protection, a ban on wet-cutting inside the unit, and daily setup and teardown, and you can see why condo pricing trends above house pricing for equivalent finishes.

We plan around it. Elevator bookings and working hours get locked in during the approval window, deliveries get consolidated into fewer elevator days, and cutting happens off-site or in approved areas. Logistics do not have to blow the budget — but they do have to be priced honestly up front. A quote that ignores them is a quote that grows later.

If your unit is in a newer tower and you mainly want better floors, lighting, and a sharper kitchen, budget $15,000–$40,000 and start by requesting the alteration package from property management. If you are in an older Thornhill building with an original kitchen and bathroom, plan for the $70,000–$120,000 full-unit range and get the paperwork moving before you fall in love with finishes — approvals set your start date, not tile choices.

We have renovated homes and condos across the GTA since 2004 from our Vaughan headquarters on Keele Street, and we prepare the board package — drawings, insurance certificates, WSIB clearance, schedule — as part of our condo renovation service in Vaughan. Every project carries our 2-year workmanship warranty. Request a free quote, bring your building's rules, and we will tell you what is realistic before you spend a dollar.