No two lots are the same, so no two carriage homes should look alike. Here is how to think through style, roofline, and layout before you sit down with a designer.
Written by Serge, Founder, Kelowna Carriage Homes
We do not have a portfolio of completed carriage homes to show yet; this is a newer program for us, and we would rather say that plainly than fill this page with stock photography and call it inspiration. What follows instead is the actual decision-making a designer walks through with you: roofline, materials, storeys, and layout, tied to what your specific lot allows.
A rendering can make any roofline look good in the right afternoon light. The decisions below are the ones that still hold up in February.
Rooflines and siding are worth matching to the main house in most cases, not because the bylaw requires it, but because it protects resale value and avoids objections at the design-review stage in some neighbourhoods, particularly older, established blocks in Downtown Kelowna and South Pandosy. A carriage home with a similar roof pitch, trim colour, and siding material reads as part of the property; a mismatched one reads as an afterthought, even when it is well built.
Newer subdivisions in Upper Mission, Lake Country, and parts of the Westside are more forgiving of a deliberately different look, especially where the main house already has an eclectic or transitional style. A confidently different design still needs to relate to the main house in scale and setback so it does not compete with it visually.
Hardie board (fibre cement), wood-look steel siding, and stucco all price within a similar range; the bigger swings in cost come from window count and roof complexity, not the base material.
Kelowna caps a carriage house at 90 m² (about 970 sq ft) of floor area regardless of how many storeys it is built over, so the choice is really about site coverage and how the space feels to live in, not total square footage. A single-storey plan uses more of a lot’s accessory site coverage allowance, about 14% combined with other accessory structures, which is the tighter constraint on a smaller lot.
Going up instead of out preserves yard space and usually costs less per square foot of finished floor to heat and maintain than the same area spread over a larger footprint. It also means stairs, which matters if the unit is meant for an aging parent or anyone planning to stay long-term; see the multi-generational housing guide for that trade-off in more detail.
A single storey suits larger lots with coverage to spare, and it suits a unit built primarily for one-level living rather than maximum rental income.
The floor plan follows from what the unit is for. A unit built purely for rental income generally performs best as a one- or two-bedroom: CMHC’s 2025 Kelowna averages show a two-bedroom renting for meaningfully more than a studio, $2,118 versus $1,395 a month, and the added cost of the extra bedroom is smaller than that rent gap over time. The ROI calculator guide walks through that math with real numbers.
A unit built for family, rather than a tenant, is a different design problem. It usually wants a full kitchen and its own laundry regardless of size, more storage, and a layout that works for one or two people living there for years, not months. The multi-generational housing guide covers those specifics.
Whichever direction you choose, in-suite laundry and a separate hydro meter are standard on every carriage home we build; they are not an upgrade.
A ground-floor garage under the unit adds cost per square foot but is the only way to keep a car covered on a tight lot. Where a detached garage already exists in decent condition, building above it can be cheaper than a new foundation, if the structure can carry the load, which is checked in the feasibility study before anyone commits to a design direction.
Separation from the main house matters more than most first-time clients expect. A distinct walkway, a few feet of planting between the two structures, and a fenced boundary around the carriage home’s own outdoor space go a long way toward making it feel like an independent home rather than a large shed with someone living in it, whether that someone is a tenant or a family member.
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Costs, timelines, rents, and incentive amounts on this page are estimates from the sources cited, current as of September 2026. Each is confirmed in writing in your free feasibility study. Licensed and insured; documentation available on request.