A kitchen that faces the lake.

Houses on Cayuga Road and Seneca Road were built when a kitchen was a galley with a pass-through, tucked at the back beside the carport and walled off from the Florida room. The lake is on the far side of that wall. So a kitchen project in Sea Ranch Lakes is usually the same story in different finishes: take out the partition, absorb the old utility room or breakfast nook, set an island where the pass-through was, and let whoever is cooking look at the water like everybody else in the house.

Kitchen work touching plumbing, electrical, mechanical or structure gets permitted through the Village office on Gatehouse Road, where the Village's building official reviews plans against the Florida Building Code as administered in Broward County. If the scope stays inside the walls, the path is short. Enlarge the window over the sink or cut a new opening to the terrace and you are changing the exterior, which brings design comment from the Beach Club citizen board and action by the Village Council. Older houses here also tend to need an electrical service upgrade before a modern appliance package is legal.

Structure and rough-ins go first, then boxes set and leveled, then stone templated off the actual cabinets rather than off a drawing. Selections are locked before demolition so nothing sits waiting on a backordered hood. Adjacent rooms get papered, taped and protected, because in a house this size the dust has nowhere else to go. Fixed written scope, one supervisor on site daily, one accountable team from estimate to warranty. Licensed and insured under Lic. CGC1539072, with 20-plus years of South Florida work behind it.