Remodeling a Kitchen in a Spokane Craftsman Bungalow

Spokane’s early-century neighborhoods — Browne’s Addition, Corbin Park, the South Hill — run on the craftsman bungalow: wood-frame, big front porch, basement below, and a kitchen built as a workroom, not a showpiece. If yours was built between 1905 and 1935, the pattern is familiar: a closed-off kitchen at the back of the house, a chimney chase stealing a corner, and a century of layered updates.

The Walls Are Plaster, Not Drywall

Bungalow walls are wood lath and plaster, and the kitchen-to-dining-room wall often carries real load. Opening it is absolutely doable — it’s done in Browne’s Addition every month — but it’s plaster demolition plus a properly sized header, not a sledgehammer afternoon. The written scope should name the wall construction and the beam plan before anything comes down.

Nothing Is Square — Plan for It

A hundred winters of settling means sloped floors, out-of-plumb walls, and a chimney chase where a cabinet run wants to go. This is scribe-and-filler work: a pro measures the room as it is, specs cabinets that absorb the variance, and leaves the charm where it belongs.

The Basement Is Your Friend

A bungalow over a basement leaves every supply and drain line accessible from below. Moving a sink or adding a dishwasher where none existed is real plumbing work — but it’s joist work, not concrete cutting. That accessibility is the older home’s quiet superpower.

The Moves That Respect the House

Shaker or inset cabinets, schoolhouse pendants, fir-friendly tones, a peninsula where an island won’t fit — the bungalow remodel that sells is the one that looks inevitable, not imported. In Spokane’s historic districts, a kitchen that honors the house outperforms a glossy import every time.

Live in a bungalow with a kitchen that’s ready? One call connects you with a local pro.