David R. Smith Design Inc.

My experience David R. Smith has been outstanding. His skills go beyond creative and proficient design talent. David's ability to truly listen and accurately reflect my project goals in the design plan was impressive. His intelligent design plan will serve my family well for long into the future.
In addition to all the foregoing, he is a pleasure to work with, respectful, attentive and responsive. Highly recommended!

David was a delight to work with. He met with us many times and always gave us lots of options, each time bringing his own personal and unique touch to the design. He resolved a couple of tricky issues for us, given the age of our house and worked well with our contractor to finalize everything about our design before shovels went into the ground. A pleasure to work with and I would highly recommend him.

Our entire experience with David was excellent and we would highly recommend David R. Smith Design! He delivered on all promises and was timely, thorough, detailed and easy to work with. We respect David and all the ideas he offered in helping us plan for our house renovation. In addition, we really appreciated his pricing which was well worth it.

I interviewed several architects before choosing David - and I am so glad I did! He has been amazing throughout the whole process. He was always patient, ready to answer any questions and super accommodating. If you are looking for someone kind, patient, talented and easy to work with - look no further. He is highly professional and will not disappoint! I already recommended him to all my friends, who are super satisfied with his service.

David's approach to our project was both professional and thorough. Even with our indecision he was very patient and thoughtful with responses and ideas. We felt like his only clients.

We used David for a second renovation and again, we're completely satisfied! David not only expedited the original design, changes were also handled very quickly. We had permits (original and revisions) approved in record time! David also always goes above and beyond. He is not only our designer, we also consult him on areas that extend beyond his regular scope of work. And he's always very helpful! We'll continue to use David for future projects and highly recommend him to anyone looking for a designer!

We purchased a home and knew that we wanted to completely renovate it, add a two-story addition and finish the basement. Not knowing where to start, we found David R. Smith design through a recommendation from our general contractor. Having read through all the reviews on Homestars for David R. Smith design, we can genuinely say that the positive reviews are all true. David is one of those rare people in the industry that you will go back to time and time again because of his experience, high quality of work and he’s just a really nice guy that you can freely talk to.

We hired David to draft our house plans and to take care of all aspects of apply for and obtaining building permits.
Starting from a few ideas from Pinterest, David created various designs taking into account all the things on our wish list. Having vast experience with the process of home design, David is able relate to the difficult decisions that need to be made balancing budget vs features. He is a great sounding board for ideas and recommendations and is extremely patient with making changes to designs.

During the later stages of the design process, David worked extensively with our general contractor to finalize our house plans. While reviewing the designs, it was clear that David is extremely knowledgeable with the technical aspects of structural design, building codes and experience with resolving issues.

During the permit application process, David expertly navigated the process to expedite obtaining the building permits. He constantly followed up with the City reviewers and made sure to keep our application top of mind for them.

We really could not have found a better person and company to help us through the process and we greatly appreciate the work that was done.

Amazing choice to help build your house. We had a 1950's bungalow that needed to be renovated and after contacting a number of designers we chose David. He was the most professional of everyone I spoke with. We could not visualize what we wanted, but he was able to use our wishlist and turn our two bedroom bungalow into a 4 bedroom house with an inlaw suite in the basement. The initial meeting, the first proposal, changes that we made a thousand times, committee of adjustments, engineering drawings, electrical drawings, HVAC permits, building permits everything was completed or arranged by David. Don't know how he does it and keeps so calm.
David was very patient with us and was always available to answer question by phone or email. When things needed to be added or removed from the plans they were done promptly and provided to us for review. We are not using a contractor for our project and the advice that he has provided has helped so much . Getting all the plans and permits approved using David made our busy lives so much easier. I really can't say enough about how great he was during the planning and permit stage and knowing that he is there to answer questions we might have during the build is a great weight off our shoulders. Thanks so much for everything, David.

I'm an ICI tradesman and work with some great draftsmen & project managers on a daily basis. I know a good set of drawings, and I know good management.

David is the single best trade professional I have ever worked with.

The drawings are exceptional. Details and notes are comprehensive. Correspondence was always clear and timely. David has excellent knowledge of city permits, CofA procedure, and all other pertinent building depts. He managed my expectations of these processes at every step.

David sets an incredibly high standard. I look forward to working with him again on future projects.

I would highly recommend David R. Smith to anyone and everyone. When it comes to these sorts of important decisions I am extremely particular and very detail-oriented and I'm happy to say that David exceeded my expectations. David is extremely knowledgeable and accommodating. On many occasions he has gone above and beyond what we thought we signed up for. He truly cares and took great interest in all of our needs and wants. He spends quality time, going through ideas and processes. He is also very fairly and reasonably priced.

We were very budget driven. Beginning this process, David was very clear as to the scope of work that could be done for x amount of dollars. He works closely with a variety of contractors and clearly understands cost of quality construction, from materials to labour. (Note: He does not push his contractors on you, you are free to use whoever you feel is fit.) He was very realistic about what we could and could not accomplish but was willing to break down our project in segments in order to focus on what our priorities are and what we really need vs. want. To us this was very important, because after going through months of working with David, we realize that our ideas continued to snowball which in turn snowballed the cost of construction. David would kindly remind us of where we began and what our focus was and this was much appreciated. But he had no problem exploring new ideas.

From a design perspective, I think one of his greatest strengths is working in urban and small spaces; maximizing what we have and offering solutions that still allow us to work within small parameters but achieve what we want at the end of the day. Although in our case, we are not adding a huge amount of square footage, the impact should be great and allow most of my "wish list" items to be met within our budget.

I think anyone can run into disagreements along the process, especially if either side is unrealistic about expectations but this did not happen. Any question or concern we had, even when thinking about making alterations to the plans, David would happily examine and offer the most professional advice listing both pros and cons. I could not be happier. I am walking away from this process feeling much more educated and confident in the decision to go ahead with the construction phase.