Kitchen Remodeling in Venice, FL

From John Nolen's 1920s island plan to the golf communities east of I-75

Venice was laid out in the 1920s by planner John Nolen for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and the island district still follows his plan: a broad Venice Avenue, parks at the ends of streets and stucco homes with barrel-tile roofs in a Northern Italian style. The island only became an island when the Intracoastal Waterway was dug through in the 1960s, so most older streets sit close to salt water.

Those older kitchens are often small, with plaster walls that are rarely square. Cabinets have to be scribed to the wall rather than shimmed against it, and a solid hardwood box holds hinge screws far longer than the particleboard many were refitted with decades ago. East of the interstate the problem flips: generous floor plans fitted with builder-grade boxes that start swelling at the sink base within a few humid summers.

A Nolen street is no proof of a 1920s house. The plan was platted from 1926 to 1929, but the National Park Service nomination notes that much of it was built out only after World War II, so a 1950s block ranch with a galley kitchen often sits beside a Mediterranean original. We check the year built first.

Salt air favors finishes sealed on every face, including door backs and the undersides of shelves. Our article on why cabinets swell in Florida humidity explains what fails first and why.

How a Venice kitchen moves from tape measure to installed cabinets

1. 1

   Measure the room

   We record wall lengths, out-of-plumb corners and the location of every outlet and supply line before drawing anything.

2. 2

   Drawings and a 3D model

   You review working drawings and a rendering of the finished kitchen and we revise until layout, door style and species are settled.

3. 3

   Build on Lewis Ave

   Your custom kitchen cabinets come off our Lewis Ave benches with hand-fitted dovetailed drawers and mortise-and-tenon frames.

4. 4

   Install and coordinate

   We set and scribe the cabinets, then schedule the stone fabricator to template the tops once the boxes are level.

Plenty of Venice owners spend summers up north, so we can measure before you leave and keep the drawing review going by email until you return.

Venice building department, flood zones and the Laurel Road corridor

Inside city limits, the City of Venice building department issues permits and inspects plumbing, electrical and structural changes. Addresses just outside the line, such as South Venice and Venice Gardens, permit through Sarasota County instead. On the island, homes in mapped flood zones may be checked against the FEMA/NFIP substantial-improvement threshold if the remodel is large, so we raise it early.

The John Nolen Plan of Venice Historic District joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 and covers about 847 acres between Laguna Drive, Home Park Road, the Corso and The Esplanade. If a remodel there changes a window or exterior door, we raise it with the city before drawings are final; cabinetry inside leaves the facade alone.

Our trips south follow US 41 or I-75 to the Laurel Road and Jacaranda Boulevard exits, which puts the island, the neighborhoods along the Venice Bypass and the newer communities east of the interstate on the same route as Nokomis just to the north.

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