Home remodeling
in Baltimore.

Prime Renovations is a Baltimore design-build firm. We remodel houses across the city and Baltimore County: full-home renovations, kitchens and baths, additions, and the structural work that old houses eventually need. The architect, the engineer, the permit expediter and the crew are one team under one contract, led by owner and principal contractor Rodney Hakimi.

Baltimore houses are not generic houses

About half of the city’s 297,000 housing units are attached rowhouses, roughly four in ten were built before 1940, and the median house dates to 1947 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024). That shapes every remodel here. Party walls limit where you can open a floor plan. Brick and Formstone façades hide a century of settlement. Floor joists were sized for a different era, basements are low, and the mechanical systems have usually been replaced two or three times in ways that were never coordinated.

Working on that housing stock well means investigating before designing: a site visit, a look at the structure, and a written pro-forma estimate that names its assumptions. It is the reason our process starts with discovery rather than a price.

What we remodel

Full-home renovations. Gut renovations and whole-house reinventions where layout, structure, systems and finishes are rebuilt together. Our 3715 Milford Ave project is a classic Baltimore rowhouse taken from the ground up to an open-plan modern residence. Typically from about $600,000.

Kitchens and baths. From pull-and-replace upgrades where plumbing stays in place to full kitchens with structural changes, custom cabinetry and stone. Kitchen and bath builds start around $25,000; full kitchen remodels typically run $45,000 to $120,000. See our guides on kitchen remodeling in Baltimore and bathroom fabrication.

Additions. Second-story pop-ups, rear and side additions, and primary-suite additions, engineered to tie into the existing structure. Major additions from about $315,000.

Structural and below-grade work. Rowhouse underpinning and basement dig-outs, foundation reinforcement and emergency shoring. Often the first phase of a larger renovation.

We take on substantive projects starting around $25,000 and do not take single-room cosmetic refreshes. A complete list with baselines is on the services page.

Where we work

Most of our residential work is in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, with projects in Howard, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties. Neighborhoods we know well:

Permits, historic review and lead paint

Three sets of rules come up on almost every Baltimore remodel, and a good contractor builds them into the schedule rather than discovering them mid-project.

Permits. Baltimore City requires a permit for altering, repairing or rehabilitating a structure and for changing or replacing electrical, plumbing, gas or HVAC systems; only minor repairs that do not replace or significantly change an item are exempt. Baltimore County requires permits for alterations and structural modifications, for creating a new kitchen or bedroom, and for all electrical and plumbing work, which must be pulled by licensed trades. We handle applications, plan review and inspections for both jurisdictions. Our Baltimore permits guide goes into timelines.

Historic districts. Baltimore City’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) oversees 38 local historic districts and reviews all exterior changes within them through an Authorization to Proceed issued with the building permit. Routine repairs are handled at staff level, often within about 48 hours; additions and demolition go to the full Commission. Interior work is not reviewed, and qualifying rehabilitation may earn a CHAP property-tax credit.

Lead paint. Because most Baltimore housing predates 1978, the federal Renovation, Repair and Painting rule applies to most of our residential work: anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces in a pre-1978 home must be EPA-certified and use lead-safe practices, with containment, prohibited methods (no burning, dry sanding or dry scraping) and documented cleanup. We scope it into the estimate.

What remodeling costs in Baltimore

Two kinds of numbers matter: what a project costs, and what it returns. The most recent Baltimore-specific figures from Zonda’s Cost vs. Value report (2024) are below, alongside Prime’s own baselines. Industry averages describe a typical job at a typical spec; a written line-item estimate describes yours.

Source: Zonda, Cost vs. Value 2024, Baltimore, MD. Nationally, the 2025 report put the midrange minor kitchen remodel at $28,458 with 112.9% of cost recouped.

Prime’s baselines: kitchens and baths from about $25,000, major additions from about $315,000, full-home renovations from about $600,000. Our article on whole-home renovation costs in Maryland explains what moves those numbers, and how our pro-forma estimates are built.

How a project runs

A site visit and discovery call; a written pro-forma estimate with line items, allowances and assumptions; design and engineering; permits; construction with job-cost tracking you can see; closeout and a walkthrough. Design and permitting typically take four to six weeks on a major project, construction four to six months for an addition and eight to fourteen weeks for a kitchen. The nine phases are laid out on the process page.

Before you sign with anyone: Maryland law requires a written contract with the contractor’s MHIC number, start and completion dates, a description of the work and materials, the price and the payment terms, and it caps the deposit at one-third of the contract price. Check any contractor’s license at the Maryland Department of Labor. Then read what our clients say on the testimonials page.