Ranch Home Kitchen Remodel in Scottsdale

What You Usually Find in a 1960s Scottsdale Kitchen

Walk into the kitchen of an original ranch house in south Scottsdale and the pattern is familiar. A narrow room, often ten or eleven feet wide, with cabinets on one or two walls. A single window over the sink looking into the backyard. A doorway to the carport or garage, another to the dining room, sometimes a third to a hallway. Very little uninterrupted counter, and a refrigerator squeezed into whatever corner was left.

Some of these kitchens have been remodeled once already, usually in the eighties or nineties, and what you see is a layer of oak or white thermofoil doors over a layout that never changed. That matters, because the layout is almost always the real problem. New cabinets in the same bad arrangement give you a nicer version of a kitchen that still does not work.

Start With the Layout, Not the Finishes

A ranch home kitchen remodel with us begins on paper. We measure the room and the spaces around it and look at how the doorways break up the walls. Three doorways in a small kitchen can eat more usable counter than any appliance does.

The goals are simple and physical. The sink, the range and the refrigerator should sit close enough to work between without walking laps, and far enough apart that two people are not standing in each other’s way. The main aisle wants 42 inches of clear floor for one cook, and closer to 48 if two people cook together or the dishwasher door opens into the walkway. Counter on both sides of the range and at least one side of the sink is not a luxury; it is where you set things down.

Getting there in a narrow room usually means one of a few moves:

• Closing a redundant doorway to gain a full run of base cabinets.
• Turning a one wall galley into an L by borrowing a pantry or utility closet.
• Moving the refrigerator to the end of a run so its door no longer blocks the aisle.
• Adding a peninsula where there is not room for an island with proper clearance on all sides.

If none of that works inside the existing walls, the conversation turns to opening the kitchen into the next room, which we cover on our wall removal page.

Cabinets That Suit an Older House

For most full remodels we recommend cabinet boxes built from plywood rather than particleboard, especially at the sink base, where a slow leak under a particleboard cabinet turns the bottom to crumbs. Framed and frameless construction both work; frameless gives you slightly more usable drawer width, which counts in a small room. Full extension drawers with soft close slides are worth the cost in base cabinets, because deep drawers are far easier to use than shelves you have to kneel to reach.

Older houses are rarely square. Walls lean and slabs dip. Good installation means shimming base cabinets dead level before the countertop is templated, because stone and quartz cannot hide a cabinet run that is out by a quarter inch.

When a previous remodel left sound plywood boxes, refacing is worth pricing. It keeps the layout, so it only makes sense when the layout already works.

Wiring and Plumbing Behind the Walls

Here is where ranch house budgets move. Many of these homes started with small electrical panels and a few general circuits serving the whole kitchen. A current kitchen expects dedicated circuits for the dishwasher, disposal and microwave, GFCI protection at the counter receptacles, AFCI protection where required, and lighting under the upper cabinets. If you want an induction range, we check that the panel has the capacity before you buy one.

On the plumbing side, galvanized steel supply lines are still common and often badly restricted inside. Cast iron drains under the slab can be in decent shape or can be the reason for a future repair. Keeping the sink on its original wall is usually the economical choice, since moving it means cutting concrete and running a new sloped drain. Very hard Scottsdale water also makes a dedicated shutoff and space for filtration under the sink worth planning for.

Counters, Ventilation and Heat

Quartz and granite are both reliable here; porcelain slab handles heat and sun well near a bright west window. We recommend ducting the range hood outside rather than recirculating, sized to cover the cooking surface. Many ranch kitchens have an interior range wall, so the duct route through the attic is part of the plan.

How the Job Runs

Demolition, then rough electrical and plumbing, then inspection by the City of Scottsdale where permits apply. Drywall and patching follow, then cabinets, then the countertop template, which typically takes one to three weeks to turn into installed stone. Backsplash, fixtures, appliances and trim come last. We set up a temporary sink and refrigerator so the house stays livable.

To talk through your kitchen, call (480) 247-0326.