Remodeling in Lutherville-Timonium, MD

Updating a post-war house in Lutherville or Timonium

Most work here starts with a house that is 55 to 75 years old. These houses were built solidly. Their kitchens, bathrooms and decks have usually been patched more than once, and the wiring was laid out for a household with far fewer appliances, so a kitchen or bath update here usually adds new circuits under an electrical permit.

The usual projects in these neighborhoods follow from that housing stock:

• A kitchen remodel in Lutherville-Timonium that rethinks the original layout and adds the circuits a modern kitchen needs
• A bathroom remodel in Lutherville-Timonium for a hall bath on its second or third round of tile
• A deck rebuild in Lutherville-Timonium once the old frame has given out
• Basement finishing to add living space below the main floor

What changes inside the Old Lutherville district

Old Lutherville began in 1852 as a summer resort and railroad suburb, and its tree-lined grid of streets holds about 80 structures the state recognizes for architectural merit, among them churches and a stone railroad station. Lots are large. Some later ranch-type and colonial houses sit among the older homes.

The neighborhood is also a Baltimore County Historic District. Exterior work there needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Landmarks Preservation Commission as well as a building permit. The list of reviewed work is long: windows, siding, roofing, gutters, porches, steps, fences of any height and decks of any size. Some of those jobs need no permit at all elsewhere in the county. The commission weighs each application against the county’s Historic Preservation Design Guidelines and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards.

For an exterior job in the district, we plan around the commission’s calendar. We gather drawings, photos of the house and product details early enough to meet the application deadline for the meeting you need. Interior remodels go to the commission only when they are part of a tax credit project, though finishing a basement inside the district needs a building permit even where it wouldn’t elsewhere in the county.

Contributing homes in the district can also apply for the county’s historic tax credit on repairs such as roofs, masonry and window restoration. New kitchens and bathrooms aren’t eligible, and the county has to approve the work before it starts. If your project mixes both kinds of work, we can list the repair items separately in the estimate.

Timonium condos and Mays Chapel homes

Timonium has more large condo and apartment buildings than Lutherville. A condo kitchen or bath there follows the building’s renovation rules on top of county permits, so we ask for those rules before setting a date.

West of I-83, Mays Chapel’s homes are reaching their own second round of updates.