Kitchen Remodeling in Bloomfield, NJ

Bloomfield sits at almost exactly the midpoint of everything we track. About 41 percent of homes are single-family detached, roughly half are owner-occupied, and the median build year is 1950 with 38 percent of the housing predating 1940. It is genuinely mixed rather than mixed on average.

In practice that means a lot of two-family houses, many of them owner-occupied with a rental unit, alongside real single-family neighborhoods and a layer of apartment buildings.

Median year built

1950of 21,789 housing units

Built before 1940

37.7%64% before 1960

Single-family detached

41.1%72.8% in 1–4 unit buildings

Owner-occupied

50.7%5.34 sq mi, Essex County

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates. Figures describe Bloomfield township, Essex County, NJ.

Two projects in one building

The distinctive Bloomfield brief is an owner who lives in one unit of a two-family and rents the other, and wants both kitchens dealt with. Those are two different projects and treating them identically wastes money in one direction or the other.

Your own kitchen is where cabinetry grade, countertop material and layout changes are worth spending on, because you are the one using it for the next fifteen years. The rental kitchen wants durability and easy maintenance: solid boxes, a hard-wearing counter, a floor that survives tenants and movers, and finishes that can be refreshed rather than replaced.

The part that should not differ is the electrical. Kitchens in these houses were commonly wired for a refrigerator and a stove, and bringing them up to the circuits a modern kitchen expects is a safety question, not a finish question.

Structurally, expect the usual conditions of the era in the older houses: plaster over lath, framing that has settled, and the shared waste and vent stack that governs where a sink can go.

What we handle in a Bloomfield kitchen

Demolition, framing, cabinetry, countertops, backsplash, flooring, and the plumbing and electrical the room needs. Permits filed with the township and inspections scheduled.

Small Kitchen Remodeling in Bloomfield

Two-family kitchens here are typically galleys under a hundred square feet at the rear of the unit. The gains are the reliable ones: remove the soffit and run uppers to the ceiling for a full extra shelf, replace base cabinet doors with deep drawers so nothing disappears at the back, put a pull-out in the blind corner, and use a counter-depth refrigerator so it stops projecting into the aisle. Where a rear pantry or enclosed porch adjoins, absorbing it is often the cheapest real square footage available. See small kitchen remodeling.

Kitchen Cabinets in Bloomfield

This is where the owner-unit and rental-unit distinction is sharpest. For your own kitchen, plywood boxes at the sink base, dovetailed drawers on full-extension soft-close slides, and whatever door style suits the house. For a rental, durability and ease of replacement matter more than door style, and refacing sound boxes is often the right scope rather than a full replacement. Installation in older frame houses means shimming from the high point of a settled floor and scribing to walls that bow. See kitchen cabinets.

Kitchen Layout Changes in Bloomfield

In stacked units the shared stack governs, and the realistic work is reorganizing within the plumbing wall rather than relocating across the unit. In the single-family housing the picture opens up: most have full basements, so moving a sink is ordinary work and absorbing a rear pantry or porch is often a non-bearing partition removal. Ranges move with a gas line extension or a 240-volt circuit, with the hood duct route as the practical constraint. See kitchen layout remodeling.

Kitchen Countertops in Bloomfield

Short runs in compact kitchens usually mean a single slab with no seams. Quartz is the sensible default in a rental unit for its durability and complete lack of maintenance; in an owner's kitchen the range of options widens. Templating happens after cabinets are installed and level, which matters in an older frame house where walls bow. Getting a slab up an exterior staircase to a second-floor unit is a genuine logistical question worth raising early. See kitchen countertops.

Kitchen Flooring in Bloomfield

Luxury vinyl plank is the practical choice in most of this housing: waterproof, warmer and quieter than tile, forgiving of a subfloor that has settled, and considerably cheaper. In an upper unit, sound transmission to the apartment below is a real consideration, and an acoustic underlayment is worth specifying. Where tile is wanted, joists in older frame houses usually need stiffening or an uncoupling membrane first. See kitchen flooring.

Kitchen Backsplashes in Bloomfield

The single best standalone job for a kitchen that otherwise functions, in either an owner's unit or a rental. The old splash comes off, the wall gets repaired and flattened, in a plaster wall that is often most of the labor, and new tile goes on. Outlets get box extenders so the devices sit flush with the tile face, and countertop receptacles need GFCI protection, worth confirming in an older building while the wall is open. See kitchen backsplash.

Open Concept Kitchens in Bloomfield

Realistic in the single-family housing, where the kitchen-to-dining wall usually carries load and removal means a properly sized beam, posts and a load path down to the basement. In a two- or three-family it is a more serious question, because a wall carrying the floors above is carrying more than one household, and the load path runs through the whole building rather than one unit. Establish what the wall is doing before planning around its removal. See open concept kitchens.

Permits and inspections in Bloomfield

Bloomfield issues and inspects construction permits under New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code. Kitchen work altering plumbing or electrical requires one, and structural work brings in the building subcode along with a sealed drawing. In a two- or three-family, work in one unit still requires the same permits and inspections as work in a single-family house.

Where we work in Bloomfield

Across the township, Bloomfield Center, Brookdale, Brookside and the Watsessing section toward the Newark and Belleville lines.