Kitchen Remodeling in Maplewood, NJ

Maplewood has some of the oldest housing stock in our service area, and the numbers are unusually clear about it: the median home here was built in 1938, and more than half of all housing predates 1940. Nearly seven in ten homes are single-family houses, mostly colonials, tudors and the occasional Victorian, and three-quarters are owner-occupied.

That produces a very consistent remodeling brief. The kitchen is a modest room at the back of the house, separated from the dining room by a wall and often from a rear hall or pantry by another. It was designed for one person to cook in, out of sight. Ninety years later, most families want the opposite.

Median year built

1938of 9,051 housing units

Built before 1940

55.5%71.4% before 1960

Single-family detached

60.9%83.7% in 1–4 unit buildings

Owner-occupied

74.9%3.87 sq mi, Essex County

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates. Figures describe Maplewood township, Essex County, NJ.

What a prewar Maplewood house means for a kitchen

Four things come up on nearly every project here.

Plaster and lath. Not drywall. It demolishes messily, it does not patch the way drywall does, and containment during demolition is not optional if you would like the rest of the house to remain habitable.

Framing that is not square. Ninety years of settlement means bowed walls, sloping floors and corners that are not ninety degrees. Cabinets have to end up level and plumb regardless, which is a skill and a labor cost rather than a problem.

Electrical that predates the appliance list. These kitchens were wired for a refrigerator and a stove. Adding the small-appliance circuits, dishwasher circuit and microwave circuit a modern kitchen expects is straightforward with the walls open, and occasionally raises a panel capacity question.

Bearing walls in inconvenient places. The wall between kitchen and dining room in a center-hall colonial is frequently carrying load, which makes opening it a structural project rather than a demolition one.

The compensation for all of this is that these are genuinely well-built houses. The lumber is real, the joinery is solid, and a kitchen done properly in one of them will look right for decades.

Open Concept Kitchens in Maplewood

This is the request we hear most often in this town, and it is a real structural job. The wall between kitchen and dining room in these houses typically runs perpendicular to the joists above, which means it is carrying them. Removing it means a beam (engineered lumber for most spans, steel where a flush installation is wanted and the depth will not otherwise work) plus posts, and a load path that continues down through the first floor to the basement and sometimes to a new footing poured under a post. There is also usually a vent stack, heating pipe or circuit inside that wall to reroute. A partial opening or a wide cased opening is frequently the better answer: shorter span, less structural work, and you keep some wall for cabinets. See open concept kitchens.

Kitchen Layout Changes in Maplewood

Most of these houses have an open basement, which is good news, because it means moving a sink is ordinary work rather than a slab-cutting project. The classic Maplewood layout change is annexing the butler's pantry or rear hall (usually a non-bearing partition, so it is cheap floor area) and reorganizing the room around a longer continuous counter run. Relocating a range means extending a gas line or running a dedicated 240-volt circuit, and the real constraint is usually the hood duct route to an exterior wall. See kitchen layout remodeling.

Kitchen Cabinets in Maplewood

Custom or semi-custom cabinetry earns its cost in these houses more than it does in newer construction, because the rooms have odd dimensions, chimney chases in awkward places, and ceilings tall enough that a standard 30-inch upper leaves a foot of wasted height. Building to the room recovers that. Installation is where the work shows: shimming every base cabinet from the high point of a sloping floor, then closing the gaps against a bowed wall with scribe molding cut to follow it. The tell of a job done properly is that there is no wedge of daylight behind the crown. More on kitchen cabinets.

Kitchen Countertops in Maplewood

Templating after installation matters more here than almost anywhere. A wall in a 1930s house can bow half an inch across a ten-foot run, and a stone top cut to a drawing rather than to the actual installed cabinets will leave a gap someone then fills with caulk and explains away. Quartz and granite are both common choices; butcher block on an island or a coffee run with stone at the sink suits the period of these houses well. Allow one to two weeks between cabinets and counters. See kitchen countertops.

Kitchen Islands in Maplewood

Whether an island fits usually depends on whether a wall came out. In the original footprint most of these kitchens are too narrow: an island wants 42 inches of clear aisle on every side, which pushes the minimum room width past eleven feet. Once the pantry has been absorbed or the dining room wall opened, the arithmetic often works. A peninsula extending through a new opening is a particularly good fit here, because it defines the boundary between kitchen and dining room without closing it off. See kitchen islands.

Kitchen Flooring in Maplewood

Many of these houses have hardwood running through the first floor, and continuing it into the kitchen rather than stopping at a threshold is often what makes an opened-up ground floor read as one space. Engineered flooring is more stable than solid wood in a room with humidity swings. Where tile is preferred, the subfloor generally needs work first, because joists of this era flex more than a rigid tile assembly tolerates. Deciding early matters, since the floor sets the height the cabinets sit at. See kitchen flooring.

Kitchen Backsplashes in Maplewood

Wall preparation is the hidden labor here. Old plaster behind a removed splash is rarely flat, and tile follows whatever it is set on, so flattening the wall first is what prevents lippage catching the light along the whole run. Beyond that, the same details apply as anywhere: box extenders so outlets sit flush with the tile face, a finished edge where the tile ends rather than a raw cut with caulk over it, and flexible sealant rather than grout at the counter joint. See kitchen backsplash.

Permits and inspections in Maplewood

Maplewood issues and inspects construction permits through its Construction Division under New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code. Kitchen work altering plumbing or electrical requires one. Structural work, including removing a bearing wall, brings in the building subcode and generally needs a drawing sealed by an engineer or architect. Rough work is inspected before it is covered.

Where we work in Maplewood

Across the township, including the streets around Maplewood Village, the Hilton section toward the Irvington line, and Jefferson. The housing is consistent enough that the conversation is usually similar; the houses themselves rarely are.