Burbank Remodeling Contractor restores period homes in Burbank, California. The city's older neighborhoods hold a lot of 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival and Craftsman houses, along with Mid-Century ranches from the postwar boom, and most of them have been through at least one bad remodel: original windows swapped for vinyl, plaster arches squared off, box beams boxed in, original tile ripped out for whatever was on sale in 1998.
Putting that back is carpentry work, and carpentry is where this family started five generations ago. We can reproduce a profile that no longer exists in any catalog, because somebody here still knows how to run it. Call (747) 330-0305 and bring photographs of what the house used to look like if you have them.
Restoration Versus Renovation, and Which One You Want
Restoration returns the house toward its original condition and detail. Renovation modernizes it. Most real projects sit somewhere in between, and the useful conversation is about which elements are worth preserving and which are simply old.
Our general position: preserve everything that is visible, characteristic and hard to reproduce, and modernize everything that is hidden and performs badly. Keep the plaster arches, the box beams, the original front door, the wood windows on the street elevation, the barrel tile. Replace the wiring, the plumbing, the insulation and the failed roof underlayment without apology.
The Period Homes We Work On in Burbank
Spanish Colonial Revival
Twenties and thirties houses with smooth or sand-finish stucco, arched openings, clay barrel tile, wrought iron and decorative tile at stairs and fireplaces. The details most often lost are the arch profiles and the original tile, and both can be reproduced.
Craftsman Bungalows
Low-pitched roofs with exposed rafter tails, deep porches on tapered columns, built-in cabinetry, box beam ceilings and wide casing. Restoration usually means stripping paint from original woodwork, rebuilding porch structure that has rotted, and reproducing missing built-ins.
Mid-Century Ranch and Post-and-Beam
Postwar houses with low horizontal massing, wide eaves, clerestory glazing and often exposed beam ceilings. The wrong move here is applying traditional detail to a modern house. Restoration means honoring the horizontal lines and opening the house back up to the yard.
Reproducing Millwork and Trim
Matching a casing, base, crown or window sash profile that is no longer manufactured. We take a section off an original piece, have a knife ground, and run new stock that matches the existing rather than approximating it.
Plaster, Original Windows and Tile: What Can Be Saved
Lath and plaster is usually worth keeping. It is harder, quieter and flatter than drywall, and cracks are typically a sign of movement rather than failure of the plaster itself. Where plaster has come loose from the lath it can be reattached, and damaged areas can be patched in three coats to match the surrounding texture.
Original wood windows are almost always worth restoring rather than replacing. A hundred-year-old sash made from old-growth timber, properly reglazed with restored weatherstripping and a working storm, outperforms most vinyl replacements and lasts another century. Replacement windows on a Spanish or Craftsman house are also the single most visible thing that makes it look wrong from the street.
Before replacing anything original, get a price on restoring it. The restoration is frequently cheaper than people assume, and it is the difference between a period home and a house that used to be one.
Modernizing a Period Home Without Ruining It
Every one of these houses needs the same modern things: a real kitchen, more than one usable bathroom, functional heating and cooling, and wiring that is not from the Coolidge administration. The skill is doing it without flattening the character.
In practice that means putting the modern intervention where the house was never precious to begin with, usually the kitchen and the rear of the house, and leaving the front rooms alone. It means ducting a system through closets and soffits rather than dropping every ceiling. And it means matching the detail on anything new, so a bathroom added in 2026 has the same casing profile as the bedroom next to it.
Talk to a Burbank general contractor about your project
Tell us what you have in mind and we will give you a straight answer on scope, permits, timeline and price.
Call (747) 330-0305Frequently asked questions
Is my Burbank house in a historic district?
Burbank has relatively few formal historic districts compared with Pasadena or Glendale, so most homes here can be remodeled without a certificate of appropriateness. Some hillside and single-family contexts carry design review of their own. We verify the status on your parcel before design, since it changes both the timeline and what is possible on the street elevation.
Can you match plaster texture on a patch?
Yes. Matching is done by working the finish coat with the same technique used originally, and it takes a plasterer who has done it rather than a drywall crew trying to imitate it with joint compound. Sand finish, smooth trowel and the various twenties textures each have their own approach.
Should I strip painted original woodwork?
It depends on what is under the paint and how much of it there is. Old-growth fir and quartersawn oak are worth uncovering. Poplar or pine that was always intended to be painted is not. In pre-1978 homes the paint itself is likely lead based, which means the stripping has to be done with proper containment rather than a heat gun on a Saturday.
Can you build cabinetry that matches original built-ins?
Yes, and it is one of the things we most enjoy. Original built-ins can be measured, their construction and profiles copied, and new pieces built to sit alongside them convincingly. That is straight carpentry work and it is the part of this trade the family has been doing the longest.