Kitchen Remodel Palm Springs, CA

Anyone who owns a house from the desert modernism years in Palm Springs, CA eventually stands in the kitchen and wonders what is behind the walls. The house may be sixty or seventy years old, framed on a post and beam module, sitting on a concrete slab, and wrapped in glass. Those facts raise real questions before a single cabinet is ordered. The answers below come from the way these jobs actually run, in the order the questions usually arrive.

Can the kitchen be opened up to the living room?

Often it already is. Many midcentury plans in the Coachella Valley had a kitchen that sat behind a half wall or a pass through, and the structure above was built to carry the roof across wide spans on beams and posts. What looks like a wall is sometimes only a partition, which can come out. What looks like a partition can be a shear wall or can hold up a beam end. The only way to know is to open a small inspection hole, trace the framing overhead, and have the structure confirmed before any demolition plan is drawn. A wall that carries load needs a beam and posts sized by an engineer, and Riverside County plan review will ask for that paperwork.

Should the original cabinets be kept?

Some houses have cabinets worth keeping, and a good many do not. Original birch or mahogany doors with flat faces and finger pulls can be the best part of a kitchen from this era, and they are the very feature people travel to Palm Springs to see. But the boxes behind them are often thin, the drawers are shallow, and the hardware is worn through. Many owners keep the door style and rebuild everything behind it, or they order new flat panel doors in a similar grain so the room still reads as part of the house.

If the cabinets are staying, check the soffit above them. Many kitchens of this period have a dropped soffit that hides wiring or ductwork, and taking it out changes the proportions of the room. Opening it up should be decided with the ceiling height and the roof line in mind.

What is under the floor?

In most of the valley the answer is a concrete slab. Plumbing drains run through or under it, and in some older houses the supply lines are embedded in the concrete as well. That matters for layout, because moving the sink or the dishwasher far from its present spot means cutting the slab, trenching, setting new pipe and patching the concrete. Some floors also hide radiant tubing from the years when slab heating was fashionable, and a saw cut through one of those tubes is a repair nobody wants. A scan or a look at the original drawings, if the city still holds them, saves a bad surprise.

Is asbestos or lead a concern?

In a house from this period it can be. Vinyl floor tile, the adhesive under it, wall texture and some duct wrap were made with materials that are handled under special rules, and paint from before the late seventies may contain lead. A lab test of a small sample before demolition tells the crew what protocol to follow. Testing is quick and it keeps the dust out of the rest of the house, which is a larger worry here than in a damp climate because dry dust travels so far.

How hot is too hot to work?

Summer in the Colorado Desert region pushes the thermometer well past comfortable working temperatures for much of the day. Crews often start at first light and finish by early afternoon. Adhesives, grout, paint and caulk all have temperature limits on the container, and a slab that is hot to the touch cures thin set too quickly. A job planned across the summer needs the house cooled while work happens, or the schedule has to bend around the heat. Many owners leave for the season, which makes summer a practical time to demolish, but it still has to be managed.

What about the view from the kitchen?

A lot of houses here were placed to look toward Mount San Jacinto or down the street toward the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway cable line against the ridge. A kitchen remodel can protect or ruin that view. A tall upper cabinet in front of a window removes it, and a bright interior at night turns the glass into a mirror. Planning the sink, the tallest cabinets and the lighting around the view first keeps the best feature of the house intact.

What permits does the work need?

Anything that moves plumbing, adds an electrical circuit, changes a wall or alters a duct typically needs a permit. Cosmetic work such as paint, counters and cabinet doors usually does not. The permit process also brings inspections at the rough stage and at the end, and those are worth having because they confirm that what is behind the finished walls is correct. Skipping them can surface later, when a sale is pending and a buyer's inspector notices unpermitted work.

How long does the work take?

A kitchen that is only getting new cabinets and counters in the same footprint moves faster than one with a moved sink and new circuits. The longest waits are almost never the labour itself. Custom cabinets and certain countertop slabs are made to order, and appliances can run late. A realistic plan puts the orders in before demolition starts so that the room is not stripped and then left idle. Measurements for counters are taken only after the cabinets are in place and level, which adds a few days to every schedule that includes stone.

Will the old electrical service handle the new kitchen?

Not always. A kitchen of this era may have a fuse panel or an undersized breaker panel, a few outlets, and aluminum or cloth covered wiring in the walls. Modern appliances need dedicated circuits, and a house that also runs central cooling through the long summer can have very little capacity left. The electrician checks the service size, the available panel space and the condition of the wiring before the design is final, because an upgrade may be needed before the kitchen circuits can be added.

Do the windows need attention?

Walls of single pane glass in a house of this age leak heat in both directions, and a new kitchen with high end appliances adds heat of its own. Many owners reglaze the largest panes with low emissivity glass during the remodel, since the work is easier while the room is empty. Shades or deep overhangs help even more, and they protect new finishes from fading.

What is the best order to decide things?

Start with the structure and the slab, because they set the limits. Then settle the layout and the appliance list, since appliance sizes fix the cabinet dimensions and the duct and circuit locations. Then choose cabinets, counters, flooring and lighting, and last the finishes such as paint and hardware. Working in that order keeps the early decisions from being undone by later ones.

Questions from a homeowner in this position usually come down to the same point: learn what the house is made of before choosing what goes into it.

The range hood is the part of a kitchen that most owners choose last and regret first. In a Palm Springs, CA house with a flat roof, low ceilings and a wall of glass, the hood has to solve a problem that a standard two story tract home never presents. The duct has nowhere obvious to go, the ceiling may be exposed beam, and the cooking air competes with a cooling system that runs for most of the year. This article walks through the choices in the order the work happens.

Why ventilation is harder in a flat roofed house?

A typical production house has an attic above the kitchen. A duct climbs a few feet, turns, and exits through the roof or a gable wall. Many houses from the desert modernism years have no attic at all. The roof is a thin deck laid over beams, with insulation and roofing sitting almost directly above the ceiling boards. A duct has to travel through a wall, through a narrow roof cavity, or along the ceiling in a chase that is visible from the room.

The shortest, straightest run is always the best one. Each elbow in the duct costs airflow, and a long run with several turns can cut a strong fan down to a weak one. The location of the range on the plan should be set with the duct path in mind, not the other way round.

Which hood type suits which kitchen?

The main types behave very differently once they are installed. The table below sets them side by side for the kind of house found around the Coachella Valley.

Hood type	Where it fits	Main limit
Wall mounted canopy	Range against an exterior wall	Visually heavy under a low ceiling
Island hood	Cooktop in an island under a tall ceiling	Needs a duct path overhead, hard with exposed beams
Downdraft	Island cooktop with no overhead path	Weak on tall pots, duct runs under the slab or floor
Under cabinet slim hood	Range below an upper cabinet	Smaller capture area
Ductless recirculating	Last resort when no exterior path exists	Filters grease and some odor, but not heat or moisture

A wall mounted hood against an outside wall is the simplest and most effective setup. If the range can sit on that wall, the duct goes straight out through the wall behind the hood, with no roof penetration. Where the plan puts the range in an island, the options narrow quickly.

How strong does the fan need to be?

Fan power is measured in cubic feet per minute, and bigger is not better. A powerful fan over a gas range moves a great volume of air out of the house, and that air has to be replaced from somewhere. In a tightly sealed, well insulated house the replacement comes through every gap, including the flue of a gas water heater, which can draw exhaust gases back into the room. Building codes address this with makeup air requirements once a hood passes a certain flow rating.

Match the fan to the cooking. A household that sears steaks and wok cooks needs far more capture than one that mostly simmers and bakes. Electric and induction ranges also produce less combustion exhaust than gas, though grease and steam still need to go out of the house.

What about makeup air in a cooled house?

The Colorado Desert summer makes this a real issue. Whatever air the hood exhausts gets replaced by hot outdoor air, which the cooling system then has to cool again. A makeup air damper brings outside air in through a controlled duct and can be interlocked with the hood so it opens only when the fan runs. Some installations temper that air or route it near the return so it mixes before reaching the living space.

Whether makeup air is required depends on the fan rating and the local code, and the building department in Riverside County will say so at plan review. The electrician and the mechanical installer should both see the plan before the design is final, since the damper needs power and a path.

How is the duct built?

Smooth, rigid metal duct is the standard. Flexible foil duct creates turbulence and collects grease in its folds, and it is not accepted for this use. The duct should be sized to match the outlet on the hood or larger, never smaller, and every joint should be taped or sealed so that grease laden air does not leak into the roof cavity.

The exit point needs a weather cap with a damper that closes when the fan stops. In the valley, a cap with no damper lets in hot air, dust and the occasional nesting bird. Placement matters too: the exit should be away from windows, doors and the intake of any cooling equipment.

Can the duct run through the roof?

It can, with care. Roof penetrations require flashing that suits the roofing material, whether it is a built up membrane, foam or gravel. A poorly flashed penetration is among the most common causes of a leak in a flat roof, even in a place that gets little rain, because the few heavy storms find the weak point. A roofer familiar with the material should handle the flashing and the connection, and the work should be done before the kitchen finishes go in.

How loud will it be?

Sound is rated in sones, and a low number means a quieter fan. In an open plan that connects the kitchen to the living area, noise carries to the whole house. A remote or inline blower mounted outside or at the end of the duct run keeps the motor noise away from the room, though it needs power and a place to sit on the roof or the exterior wall. Standard fans with high speeds can be loud enough that people stop using them, which defeats the purpose.

How does the hood relate to the lighting and the view?

A large canopy can block sightlines to the San Jacinto Mountains or the rest of the house. A slim linear hood, or one that is painted to match the wall behind it, reads as part of the architecture rather than an object hung in front of it. Built in lights on the hood also add task lighting over the cooktop, which saves a separate fixture, though the bulbs should be easy to change from below.

What should be checked at inspection?

The inspector will usually want to see the duct material, the joints, the exit cap and, where required, the makeup air path before the ceiling or wall is closed. Photographs of the duct inside the wall are a good record for the owner. After the hood is installed, a simple test is to hold a sheet of tissue near the front edge while the fan runs and see whether it is drawn in. A hood that cannot hold a tissue has a problem somewhere in the duct.

A good ventilation plan is settled with the layout, not added at the end.