For the 1960s ranches and condos south of the 101. We come look, tell you what kind of job it is, and show you what it costs in LA.
Most kitchens and baths here are as old as the house. We open them up, fix what's behind the walls, and build the room you'll use for the next 20 years.
Two kinds of Valley homes, and they remodel differently.
Ranch houses and two-stories from the 1950s through the 1970s make up most of our work. These houses usually have room to move a wall or widen a doorway, and they usually have old supply lines and tired circuits. Before anyone picks tile, we plan for both so the price doesn't jump halfway through the job.
Book a design visit
South of Ventura and along the boulevard, a lot of homes sit in larger buildings. Those jobs run on the HOA's rules: approved work hours, elevator bookings, a shared drain stack in the wall. Landlords mostly want durable finishes that are easy to replace between tenants. Both go into our job plan.
Book a design visitPick your neighborhood. We show the housing numbers the Census Bureau keeps for its ZIP codes, and what they mean once the walls come open.
ZIP 91403
ZIP 91423
Most houses here predate 1978, so plan for lead-safe work practices on demo, and for old galvanized or cast iron lines behind the walls. A lot of homes here are in larger buildings, so HOA approval, work hours and shared plumbing stacks shape the schedule.
Sagging cabinet doors, a shower with grout going black at the bottom row, a fan that hums and moves no air. If that sounds like your house, you're in good company. By the Census Bureau's count, 67% of homes in ZIP 91403 and 76% in 91423 were built before 1980. Kitchen and bath remodeling in Sherman Oaks, CA starts with that fact, because a 40- or 60-year-old room hides things that a new countertop won't fix.
So we start with a design visit. On that visit we open cabinets, look under sinks, check the panel and press on the floor next to the toilet. Then we tell you which job you have and what it runs in Los Angeles, using published numbers you can check yourself. Sometimes the answer is a smaller job than you expected. We'll tell you that too.
The six jobs we're called for most. Every page says what we check, how the work runs and what it costs.
Old oak boxes, tile counters with dark grout, one outlet for every appliance. We redo the room in the right order and tell you what it costs first.
More on kitchen remodeling
Soft floors by the toilet, grout that won't stay white, a fan that only hums. We open the wall first, then tell you what the bath needs.
More on bathroom remodeling
A 1990s kitchen, a 1970s bath and carpet from the day the house sold. One schedule, one move-out, and the trades in the right order.
More on whole-home remodeling
Peeling doors, sticky drawers, a sink base gone soft. The boxes get checked first, then you hear whether it's new fronts or new cabinets.
More on custom cabinets and refacing
A tub you step over, a shower curtain you fight with. It becomes a tiled walk-in with the pan and waterproofing done in the right order.
More on walk-in shower conversions
Burned laminate, a chipped edge, tile with black grout. Counters get templated off the cabinets once they are set, so the fit is right.
More on countertop installationThree steps from the first call to a finished room.
Tell us the room, the neighborhood and what's bugging you. Photos help.
At the visit we measure, open things up, look behind the walls and talk through what you want.
You get a written scope and price, then a dated schedule, then the crew.
What you get when we run the job.
No price over the phone for a full room. Before pricing, we open cabinets and check the walls so the number holds up once demo starts.
Every cost figure on this site links to where it came from. You can check our math, and you should. One example: that report puts a midrange Los Angeles kitchen remodel at $86,214 and a minor one at $29,765.
Plumbing and wiring go in before walls close, cabinets before counters, inspection before drywall. Skipping that order is what makes jobs run long.
If new doors and a better fan will do, we'll say so. Not every old kitchen needs a full gut.
What a typical hall bath looks like before and after a remodel.
BeforeAfterExample: what a typical bathroom remodel looks like. These are illustration photos, not a specific job of ours.
We work in Sherman Oaks and nearby, from Studio City and Toluca Lake on the east side to Encino, Tarzana and Woodland Hills on the west, plus Van Nuys, Valley Village, North Hollywood and Beverly Glen.
John spent years on full construction builds in LA, most of it waiting in permit offices. The kitchen and bath jobs in between were the ones he loved: fast, dramatic and the rooms people use every day. So that's all Valley Oak does now.
In most of those stories the work itself wasn't the problem. The order was. The job got sold before anyone looked inside the walls, and the trades showed up whenever they could.
Valley Oak Kitchen & Bath runs it the other way. Look first. Write the scope down. Put the trades in order and keep the homeowner posted. It's slower on day one and a lot faster after that.
For you that means one person who knows your job, a price that's built on what's actually in your walls, and a room that doesn't need opening again in a few years. Call John. Worst case, you learn what you're dealing with.
“Open it up first, then price it. I'd rather tell you about the rotten subfloor on day one than on day ten.”
JohnOwner, Valley Oak Kitchen & Bath
More answers on the questions page.
A full remodel, rarely. That report put a midrange bath remodel in Los Angeles at $27,143. Ten thousand dollars can cover a smaller job: a new vanity, toilet, fan and paint, or a refit of a powder room. We'll tell you on the visit which version your budget covers.
Cabinets, nearly always, followed by labor and counters. Moving plumbing or a wall adds a lot too, because it brings in framing, inspection and patching. That's why keeping the sink where it is can save real money, and why we check the drain line before you fall in love with an island sink.
Yes. A lot of Sherman Oaks homes are in larger buildings, about half in ZIP 91403 by the Census count. Condo jobs run on the HOA's rules, so we get the building's alteration approval, book the elevator and plan around the shared plumbing before we schedule the crew. In ZIP 91403, 50% of homes sit in buildings of 10 or more units, so condo work is a big share of what we do.
A hall bath in the same layout usually runs a few weeks once materials are on site. Moving a drain, building a shower pan or fixing a rotted subfloor adds time, and so does waiting for an inspection before the walls close. You get a dated schedule with the scope, so you can plan around it.
Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Encino and Woodland Hills have their own pages here, and we also take jobs in Tarzana, Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Valley Village, Toluca Lake and Beverly Glen. If you're just outside those, call anyway. We'll tell you straight if it's too far for us to do a good job.
Call or text John with a few photos. We set up a design visit and go from there.
