Remodeling in Severna Park, MD

What do Severna Park homeowners usually remodel?

Most remodel kitchens and primary bathrooms in houses built between 1950 and 1989, which are now 35 to 75 years old. Plenty have been updated at least once, and those earlier updates are aging now too.

With a deck, the first question is the lot, because so many Severna Park properties sit near the Severn, the Magothy or one of their creeks.

Mid-century ranchers and split-levels

Ranchers from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s tend to have closed kitchens and one or two compact bathrooms. Split-levels put the kitchen on a middle level beside a separate dining room. Typical changes in these houses:

• Opening the kitchen to the dining room, sometimes with a beam
• Enlarging a primary bath by borrowing space from a closet
• Replacing original or once-updated tile baths down to the studs

Our Severna Park kitchen remodeling and bathroom remodeling in Severna Park pages go into each in more detail.

1980s colonials

Severna Park’s 1980s colonials are larger, with family rooms beside the kitchen and primary suites that often include a big soaking tub. The space is usually already there, so remodels in these houses tend to update finishes and rework the primary bath.

Waterfront lots on the Severn and Magothy

On lots within 1,000 feet of tidal water, exterior work answers to the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area rules. The 100-foot Buffer is the line that matters most. Anne Arundel generally requires a variance to disturb it, so a deck or addition planned on the same footprint, or on the land side of the house, moves much faster than one that reaches toward the water.

Lot coverage is the second limit. Decks, walkways and driveways all count, and on a smaller waterfront lot there may be little left to use. We look at both before drawing a new deck in Severna Park, and an addition faces the same two limits. For space inside the house instead, our basement finishing work is often the easier path.

A town built along the railroad

Severna Park grew around a stop on the Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad, and the old rail line is now the B&A Trail, with its ranger station on Earleigh Heights Road. The Robinson House was added to the National Register in 2009, and Kinder Farm Park lies just over the line in Millersville. Most remodeling here, though, happens in the subdivisions that filled in between the rivers after 1950.

Some lots, waterfront or not, also sit in a Bog Contribution Drainage Area, which, like the Critical Area, removes the county’s permit exemption for small detached decks. We check both maps for your address before planning anything outdoors, so you know whether the Critical Area applies before the design starts.