Kitchen Remodeling in Catonsville, MD

Fitting a kitchen into an Old Catonsville or Summit Park house

The hard part is physical. In a house built before 1940, walls aren’t plumb and floors aren’t level, so cabinets have to be shimmed and scribed to fit and countertops templated to the walls as they actually are. With nearly one in five Catonsville homes built before 1940, this applies to a large share of kitchens in town.

Plaster walls need care too. Cutting in new outlets, under-cabinet lighting and a range-hood duct through old plaster takes patience to avoid cracks spreading across the wall. We protect floors and the rooms around the kitchen, since the dust from plaster travels.

Old houses also tend to have fewer circuits than a kitchen needs now. Baltimore County lets an existing service stay as it is, but new kitchen circuits go in under an electrical permit from a county-registered electrician. We look at the panel early, because a service upgrade changes both the schedule and the price.

On style, many owners of Victorian and Colonial Revival houses lean toward painted shaker or inset-style cabinets and plain tile. Others want a crisp modern kitchen in an old shell. We’ve installed white shaker galley kitchens and white high-gloss cabinets with a marble-look island, and both can work in an older home.

Westview Park kitchens

Westview Park’s homes went up between 1955 and 1967, so their kitchens are 60 to 70 years old in their bones. Typical work there:

• Replacing cabinets and counters, often in the original footprint
• Adding circuits for appliances that didn’t exist when the house was wired
• Taking flooring down to a sound subfloor before new LVP or tile goes in
• Opening the wall to the dining room, when the framing allows it

If that wall is structural, Baltimore County’s alteration permit applies, and the plan needs a properly sized beam.

Woodbridge Valley and newer townhouses

Woodbridge Valley’s roughly 1,000 units date from the 1970s, and Catonsville’s 1980s building wave, about 18% of its homes, added more townhouses and subdivisions. Kitchens here are more regular, with square walls and standard cabinet sizes that make ordering simpler. A remodel is mostly choosing cabinets, counters and flooring and getting the electrical up to date. If your community has an association, look at its renovation rules before we schedule.

Historic tax credits and kitchen work

Owners in Catonsville’s National Register districts sometimes ask whether the county’s historic tax credit can help with a kitchen. It can’t. New kitchens, cabinets and appliances are excluded. Repairs elsewhere in the house may qualify for a contributing home, as long as the county approves them before work starts.

Kitchen permits in Catonsville

Trade permits cover every plumbing and electrical change, and an alteration permit covers structural work or a newly created kitchen. A plain cabinet swap isn’t addressed on the county’s pages, so confirm with PAI.

See our main kitchen remodeling page for how a job runs, bathroom remodeling in Catonsville for the other room most older houses need, and flooring for LVP, tile and hardwood refinishing.