The side-split and the back-split are North York’s signature houses. Builders put up thousands of them between the mid 1950s and the late 1960s across Don Mills, Bayview Woods, Newtonbrook and the streets either side of Bathurst. At the time they were clever: you got the separation of a two storey house without the cost of building one, and the half-levels let the house step down a sloping lot without expensive excavation.

Sixty years later they are the houses people most often describe to us as “awkward”. Four or five floor levels, short flights of stairs everywhere, a kitchen cut off from everything, and a family room that feels like a separate building. The good news is that splits respond very well to renovation, as long as you understand what you are allowed to touch.

Side-Split, Back-Split, What Is the Difference

A side-split steps up and down across the width of the house. From the street you can read the levels: a lower wing, a middle entry, an upper wing with the bedrooms. A back-split hides the same trick front to back. It looks like a bungalow from the curb and then drops away behind, so the levels are invisible until you walk in.

Functionally they present the same renovation problems, and the same opportunities.

The Complaint We Hear Most

It is nearly always the kitchen. In the original layout the kitchen sits on the entry level, walled off from the living room on one side and separated from the family room by a half flight of stairs on the other. Whoever is cooking is alone. For a house designed for family life it is a strange piece of planning, and it is the single change that transforms these houses.

The second complaint is the family room. It is often the nicest room in the house, with good light and a fireplace, and nobody uses it because it feels like a trip rather than a place you drift into.

What You Can Change and What You Cannot

The Wall Between Kitchen and Living Room

This is usually removable, and it is usually load bearing. Those two things are not in conflict. Taking it out means engineering a beam to carry what the wall was carrying, and in a split that beam often has to land on posts that continue down through the structure to the footing below. That is normal work and it is the change that pays for itself in daily use. It needs a proper structural approach and a permit, not a sledgehammer on a Saturday.

The Half Wall or Railing at the Stairs

Opening the stair opening so you can see from the kitchen down into the family room is often the highest impact change for the smallest cost. It is frequently non structural, and it makes the lower level feel connected rather than banished. Current code governs the guard height and spindle spacing, so the railing will need replacing, but that is a modest job.

The Levels Themselves

You cannot practically remove a level. People ask. The staggered floors are the structure, and flattening them means rebuilding the house. Work with the levels rather than against them, and splits stop feeling awkward.

The Lower Level Is Better Than People Think

The lowest level of a split is usually only partly below grade, which is a real advantage over a true basement. You get windows that are actually windows rather than slots at ceiling height. Ceiling heights are often better than a bungalow basement too.

That makes this level genuinely liveable space, which matters if you want a home office, a teenager’s room or an in law suite. It also makes it a strong candidate for finishing properly, with insulation and heating that match the rest of the house rather than a space heater and a rug.

Check the perimeter drainage and the grading around that wing before you finish anything. Splits on sloping lots collect water at the low corner, and finishing a level that takes water in a heavy spring is an expensive lesson.

Heating a House With Five Levels

Splits are notoriously uneven. The bedroom wing bakes while the family room stays cold, because the original ducting was sized and balanced for a building that has since had its windows replaced, its insulation topped up and its layout opened.

Before you assume you need a new furnace, have the duct balance looked at. Adding returns on the cold level, and in some houses zoning the system, fixes more complaints than replacing equipment does. This is worth sorting during a renovation while ceilings are open, not after.

What These Houses Are Worth Doing

In order of impact for the money, in our experience:

Open the kitchen to the living room
Open the stair opening to the family room
Finish and properly heat the lower level
Rebalance the heating
Replace the original windows, which on a split are numerous and usually original

Notice that none of those involve adding square footage. Splits already have the space. It is the connection between the spaces that was designed for a different kind of family life.

The Bottom Line

A split-level is not a compromised house, it is a house built to a different brief. The levels give you natural separation that open plan houses have to fake, and the lower level is better daylit than any basement. What it needs is two or three well chosen openings so the parts of the house talk to each other.

Get those right and you have a large, well separated family home for considerably less than the equivalent detached two storey down the street.

Ready to Talk?

We have opened up a lot of splits across North York, and we can usually tell you on a first visit which walls are carrying what. Book a visit and we will give you a fixed price for the work and a plan you can live through.