Remodeling in Pikesville, MD

What Pikesville homes usually need

Most Pikesville remodeling starts with the age of the house. Plenty of the ranch houses, colonials and contemporaries built here in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s still have kitchens, baths and basements from their first or second owners. Rooms of that age are usually ready for new plumbing, wiring and layouts as well as new finishes.

Work we take on in Pikesville homes:

• A kitchen update in a 1960s or ’70s house, often with a wall coming out to connect it to the family or dining room. See our Pikesville kitchen remodeling page, including kosher kitchen layouts.
• A bathroom gut and rebuild, in a detached house or one of the older condo buildings. Our Pikesville bathroom remodeling page covers the county’s trade-permit rules.
• A new or rebuilt deck off the back of the house, which has a different rule set inside Sudbrook Park. See Pikesville deck building.
• Basement finishing for a family room, office or guest space, covered on our basement finishing page.

Remodeling in Sudbrook Park

Sudbrook Park is the exception to everything above. Frederick Law Olmsted designed it in the 1890s as a summer community, and most of its houses date from the mid-1890s to the mid-1910s, many in the Shingle Style with gambrel roofs and deep porches. The Maryland Historical Trust notes that mid-century siding has covered up the original character on a few of them, which makes siding removal and porch restoration a real conversation here.

Because Sudbrook Park is a county historic district, nearly any change to the outside of the house goes to the Landmarks Preservation Commission before the building permit is issued. Interiors are not reviewed, so a kitchen or bath inside a Sudbrook Park house follows the same rules as anywhere else in the county, unless the plan adds a window or vent on an outside wall.

For a porch, window or siding job here, we work back from the commission’s monthly meeting, so the drawings, photos and product details are ready before the application deadline.

Dumbarton, Quarry Lake and the rest of Pikesville

Dumbarton’s curving streets and architect-designed houses are on the National Register but have no local design review. Colonial Village, Kimberleigh, Williamsburg and most of the rest of Pikesville follow standard Baltimore County permit rules. Quarry Lake’s newer condos and homes may have their own association rules for exterior work.

Some of Pikesville’s older single-family lots are larger than current rules would produce, which leaves room for an addition. For owners who need more space than a remodel can find, our home additions page covers how that work goes.

Condos and townhouses in Pikesville

Many Pikesville owners live in townhouses, duplexes or condo and apartment buildings, including older high-rise condos. For those owners the work is interior: kitchens, bathrooms, flooring and drywall. Building rules on work hours, elevators and water shutoffs shape the schedule, so we read them before setting a start date.