Plano is where MASACO Construction is headquartered, and the kitchens we see most often here, built between the mid 1970s and the late 1990s, share a set of habits: a wall or pass-through separating the cook from the family room, a dropped soffit above the upper cabinets, a fluorescent box in the ceiling, and a layout that assumed one person cooking alone. Our kitchen remodeling service page covers the full scope of what we do; this page covers how we fix those conditions in Plano homes.
The wall between the kitchen and the family room.
Walk into a 1980s house in Kings Ridge, Deerfield, or Whiffletree and you’ll usually find the kitchen behind a wall with a doorway or a cutout above a breakfast bar. The family room is right there, but you can’t see it while you cook. Opening that wall is the most requested change we get in West Plano.
In 2-story plans, that wall frequently carries second-floor joists. Removing it means a structural engineer sizes a beam, we set posts that carry the load down to the slab, and sometimes we add footings. In East Plano single-story ranches around Park Forest and Los Rios, the same wall is often just a partition. We confirm which case you have at the site walk, so the beam and posts show up in your 3D model and proposal, not in a week 3 change order.
Soffits, fluorescent boxes, and the ceiling you actually want.
The dropped soffit above the upper cabinets was a production-builder shortcut. Whether it hides a duct or nothing at all, it caps your cabinets at a height that wastes the top 12 to 18 inches of the room. We open it during demo, reroute anything inside, and take the cabinets to the ceiling with crown or a clean flush detail.
The fluorescent box in the center of the ceiling gets the same treatment. We remove the dropped frame, patch the ceiling to a single plane, and lay out recessed lighting where you actually work: over the sink, the range, and the island. In a Hunters Glen or Prestonwood kitchen with 8-foot ceilings, this change alone makes the room feel a full foot taller.
Moving the range, the sink, or the island on a slab.
Nearly every Plano home from this era sits on a concrete slab, which shapes how we relocate plumbing. Moving a sink, dishwasher, or island prep sink means saw-cutting the slab, trenching a new drain, tying it into the existing line, and pouring the concrete back before flooring goes down. Many slabs in newer subdivisions like Ridgeview Ranch and Russell Creek are post-tensioned, so we locate the cables before cutting.
Moving a range is less invasive. Gas and 240-volt electrical run through walls or the attic, so the real question is the vent hood, which needs a ducted path to the exterior through the brick or the attic. We plan that in design rather than improvising on site.
Layouts that fit Plano’s 1970s to 1990s footprints.
In West Plano 2-story homes, the most common outcome is a long island facing the family room, the range on the exterior wall, and a pantry carved out of the old formal dining room or a hall closet. If you’re also rethinking the formal rooms up front, see whole-home remodeling in Plano.
East Plano ranches near the Douglass Community and downtown tend to have galley kitchens with a dining room on the other side of a wall. Opening that wall and running a single long counter with a peninsula often makes more sense than forcing an island into a narrow room. In a 1960s Timber Brook house we might also find original cast iron drains worth replacing while the slab is open.
Permits, inspections, and what your HOA does and doesn’t review.
Structural, electrical, plumbing, and gas work all require permits from the City of Plano Building Inspections Department, and each gets inspected at rough-in and again at final. We pull the permits, sequence the inspections, and meet the inspector on site.
Most Plano subdivisions have an HOA with an architectural control committee, but an ACC typically only reviews changes visible from the exterior. A kitchen remodel stays interior unless you add a window over the sink or punch a vent through the brick. If your plan includes either, we prepare the ACC submittal, and homes in the downtown Plano historic district near 15th Street may also need Heritage Commission review, which we handle too.
Our kitchen process, from site walk to care guide.
Every kitchen starts with a consultation and site walk at your house, where we check the attic, the slab, and that soffit. Then we design in 3D so you can see the open wall, the island, and the lighting before anything is ordered. Your fixed-scope proposal lists allowances for selections you haven’t finalized and states that any change gets a written change order you sign first.
One project manager runs your job and sends a written update with photos every week. At the end we walk the kitchen together, build a punch list, finish it, and hand you a care guide for your counters, cabinets, and fixtures. The full sequence is on our process page. Pairing the kitchen with a primary bath? See bathroom remodeling in Plano. We do the same work in Tarrant County, covered under kitchen remodeling in Fort Worth, and everything else we do here is on our Plano service area page.
If your Plano kitchen is still behind a wall, book a consultation and we’ll walk the house with you, tell you what the wall is holding up, and show you in 3D what it looks like open.
