Kitchen and Bath Remodeling in Alamo Heights (78209)

The typical layout here is a closed galley behind the dining room, with a breakfast nook or a small back porch that was enclosed decades ago. Those three spaces are often the answer. Pulling the nook or porch into the kitchen buys room for an island or a long run of base cabinets without touching the front rooms that give the house its look.

We keep original details where they still pull their weight: arched openings, wood windows, built-in china cabinets. New cabinetry built to the room matters in these homes because walls are rarely square and ceilings vary from room to room. Stock boxes leave gaps you can see from across the kitchen.

• Inset or flat-panel doors in painted finishes suit the period
• Honed marble or quartz with a soft edge profile reads right next to old trim
• Unlacquered or brushed brass hardware ages with the house
• Under-cabinet lighting fixes the dim corners original windows leave

Opening plaster in a house this age is where budgets move. We often find galvanized water lines, cast iron drains with years of hard-water scale, cloth-wrapped wiring and two or three kitchen circuits trying to run a modern appliance package. None of that is a surprise to us, so we price a realistic allowance for it before demo instead of after.

Many of these homes sit on pier-and-beam foundations, which actually helps when a sink or tub drain needs to move, since the plumber works from the crawlspace rather than trenching a slab. The tradeoff is floor framing. Old joists can sag or carry notches from earlier plumbers, and tile needs a stiff floor, so we check deflection before anyone picks a large-format porcelain.

The classic Alamo Heights bath is a five-by-seven room with a cast iron tub, a wall-hung sink and hexagon or penny tile on the floor. Some owners want to keep that look and simply rebuild it right, with a new waterproofed shower wall and fresh tile in the same pattern. Others want a walk-in shower where the tub sat. Both work.

If the house only has one full bath, sequencing is the real question. We talk through how long you will be without a shower and whether a powder room or a second bath can be finished first. For tile choices that suit the era, our guide to choosing shower tile covers the trade-offs between hex, subway and stone.

Alamo Heights runs its own building permits, separate from San Antonio. Any change to plumbing, electrical, gas or structure gets permitted through the city, and we pull those permits and schedule the inspections. We don’t quote fees or timing for you here because they change, but we build the inspection steps into the schedule from the start.

Lots near Broadway and the side streets toward the Olmos Basin can be tight, with narrow driveways and mature trees over them. We plan dumpster placement, material drops and parking with your neighbors in mind, and we keep the work area closed off from the rest of the house so plaster dust doesn’t travel. Most owners stay in the house during the work, and we set up a temporary sink and counter space when the kitchen is out of service.