Kitchen Remodeling in Granada Hills, CA

Granada Hills kitchens belong to 1950s–60s ranch houses of 1,500–2,200 sq ft, a size up from the central Valley tracts, and they usually come with a family room already attached, so the project is less about adding square footage than about opening a closed kitchen to the room beside it, replacing a soffited ceiling and cabinets that stop a foot short of it, and bringing the electrical to current code. In Old Granada Hills the lots run to 20,000 sq ft and the houses are larger still, and the kitchen often becomes the great room.

Two jobs hide inside every Granada Hills kitchen remodel. The first is the finishes: cabinetry, stone or quartz counters, tile, lighting and appliances. The second is the house underneath. The electrical here is typically 100-amp panels in most 1950s–60s houses; a 200-amp LADWP upgrade is part of most full kitchens. The plumbing is typically galvanized supply lines and cast-iron drains in the 1950s–60s houses, slab floors on the tracts, raised foundations on some of the older Chatsworth Street blocks, and the galvanized lines are replaced with copper or PEX while the walls are open. Opening the wall to the next room means an engineered beam and a structural permit, and the new lighting has to meet Title 24.

Our office is in Valley Glen, about 25 minutes away, and the project lead who does your estimate runs the build. On the hillside streets we plan the staging, the parking and the carry-in before demolition and price them into the fixed proposal. Most Granada Hills families stay in the home for the 5–8 weeks on site, with a temporary kitchen set up and the dust contained to the work area.

Granada Hills climbs from the flat tracts around Balboa Boulevard and Chatsworth Street up into Knollwood and the foothills north of Rinaldi, with Old Granada Hills and its walkable Chatsworth Street village on the west, Granada Hills Charter High School in the middle and O'Melveny Park, the city's second-largest park, at the top. Our office is in Valley Glen, about 14 miles south by the 405, a 25-minute drive, and the LADBS counter that reviews Granada Hills permits is the Van Nuys Development Services Center on Van Nuys Boulevard.

Along Chatsworth Street and the older blocks around it the houses are the oldest in the neighborhood, with galvanized plumbing and 100-amp panels; the tracts around Balboa Boulevard are a decade newer but share the closed plan. Up in Knollwood the hillside houses have the view side of the house where the kitchen wants to be, and moving it there is a structural and plumbing project we design around the slope. Everything is permitted through LADBS at the Van Nuys counter, with hillside review only north of Rinaldi.

Granada Hills is City of Los Angeles, so the kitchen is permitted through LADBS (City of Los Angeles) at the Van Nuys Development Services Center. The electrical and plumbing permits are pulled before demolition, inspections are scheduled around the framing and rough-in stages, and the permit is closed at final so the work shows as permitted when you sell.