Remodeling a 1970s Ranch Kitchen in Livingston County

What does a 1970s ranch kitchen remodel usually involve?

Most kitchens from this period share a recognizable set of features. Each one has a typical update, and knowing them helps you scope the project before the first drawing.

Is the wall between kitchen and family room load-bearing?

Sometimes. Some 1970s ranches were built with roof trusses that span the full width of the house, which often leaves interior walls non-bearing. Others were framed with rafters and ceiling joists that rely on a center wall for support, and that wall often runs right along the kitchen. You cannot tell reliably from inside the room.

The answer comes from the attic and the basement: how the roof is framed, which way the ceiling joists run, and whether a beam or wall below lines up with the wall in question. When the wall is bearing, a beam can replace it, either dropped below the ceiling or flush with it, and the point loads carry down to the foundation. That work needs a building permit and, in many cases, a structural review. An open-concept kitchen plan should settle this before the layout is finalized.

How do you keep storage when the wall comes down?

A removed wall usually takes a run of upper cabinets with it, which is why opened ranch kitchens sometimes feel great and work poorly. Replacing that storage is a design problem we solve on purpose.

• Peninsula with storage on both sides: deep drawers toward the kitchen and shallow cabinets or bookshelves toward the family room.
• A tall pantry wall on the remaining solid wall, often holding more than the lost uppers did.
• Cabinetry to the ceiling wherever soffits come out.
• Drawers instead of doors in base cabinets, which store more usable volume.
• A converted closet off the hallway turned into a pantry, where the floor plan allows it.

Our pantry and storage design work starts with an inventory of what the old kitchen held, so nothing ends up homeless after the remodel.

What should you check in a 1970s ranch before design starts?

Most of the answers that shape a ranch kitchen are visible from the attic, the basement and the electrical panel. Nick works through this list on the first site visits, before drawing anything:

• ✓Attic framing: trusses spanning wall to wall, or rafters and ceiling joists leaning on a center wall.
• ✓Basement beam line: whether a beam or wall below sits directly under the kitchen wall you want to open.
• ✓Cable markings: the jacket of exposed cable in the basement, where the CPSC says aluminum is marked AL or Aluminum.
• ✓Panel capacity: open breaker slots and the rated service size.
• ✓Soffit contents: ducts, vent stacks or bath-fan runs that need rerouting before cabinets go to the ceiling.
• ✓Flooring layers: how many layers of vinyl or underlayment are down, since stacked layers change cabinet and dishwasher heights.
• ✓Window height: whether the sink window sill clears a new backsplash and faucet.

The flooring layer check sounds minor and rarely is. Each layer left in place raises the finished floor, and a dishwasher slid between a raised floor and a new countertop can end up trapped once tile goes down. Deciding early whether to strip to the subfloor avoids that.

Tri-level kitchens need a different plan

In a tri-level, the kitchen usually sits on the middle level, with half-flights up to the bedrooms and down to a family room. Opening the kitchen often means working with a railing wall or knee wall at the stairs rather than a full-height wall. A counter-height ledge or a peninsula can take the place of the railing and give seating that overlooks the lower level. Floor structure changes at each level, so expect framing to drive what is possible.

Wiring, ductwork and floors in 1970s houses

Houses of this age often have panels that are full and kitchens wired for far fewer appliances than people use today. Some homes wired in the late 1960s and early 1970s used aluminum branch wiring, which an electrician should evaluate before new work ties into it. Soffits commonly hide heating ducts or bath fans, and older sheet vinyl and adhesives are worth testing before removal.

The aluminum question is specific to this era. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission explains that a copper shortage in the mid-1960s pushed builders to use aluminum for ordinary 15- and 20-amp circuits, so cable installed between 1965 and the mid-1970s may be aluminum. A CPSC-sponsored survey found aluminum-wired homes built before 1972 were 55 times more likely than copper-wired homes to have outlet connections reach fire-hazard conditions. The agency's recommended permanent fixes are replacing the circuits with copper or pigtailing every connection with one of two connector methods it names. A kitchen remodel, with walls already open, is the cheapest moment to rewire at least the kitchen circuits in copper.

Paint is the other age marker. Most ranches from the 1970s were built before the federal government banned lead-based paint for homes in 1978, so the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule applies when paid contractors disturb painted surfaces. Homeowners working on their own house are generally exempt; anyone you hire should be able to show the firm's EPA lead-safe certification before demolition starts.

The basement is the advantage. Most ranches in Genoa Township, around Howell and on the larger lots of Brighton Township have accessible basements, which makes moving a sink to a peninsula or adding circuits far simpler than in a house on a slab.