Kitchen Remodeling in Orleans, MA

East Orleans, Rock Harbor, Pleasant Bay and in-town — ten minutes from our North Eastham showroom.

Orleans is where the Lower Cape does its business. Route 6, Route 6A and Route 28 all converge here, the grocery stores and hardware suppliers are here, and for most of the Outer Cape a trip to Orleans is a weekly fact of life. It is also about ten minutes from our showroom in North Eastham, which makes Orleans one of the easiest towns for us to service well — same-day site visits, quick material runs, and a crew that is not spending an hour on the road each way.

The housing runs the full range. East Orleans, out toward Nauset Beach and Barley Neck, has large seasonal homes and year-round properties on generous lots. The Namequoit and Pleasant Bay side has waterfront houses where the view drives every design decision. Around Rock Harbor and Skaket you find bayside cottages and Capes. In the village itself there are older houses on smaller lots, some of them within the Orleans portion of the Old King's Highway Regional Historic District along Route 6A.

On Cape Kitchens has worked across all of it for more than 30 years. Owner and designer Vern Hatt is a Massachusetts licensed and insured contractor (Construction Supervisor License #CS62739, Home Improvement Contractor License #177590) and runs every Orleans project personally.

On the Pleasant Bay and Nauset side, plenty of Orleans houses have a view that is the entire reason the house exists. The mistake we most often get called in to correct is a kitchen where somebody put a run of wall cabinets across the window wall.

The alternatives are better than they sound. Move the storage to the opposite wall and go full height there, so you gain more cabinet volume than you lost. Use a peninsula or island to hold what would have been in base cabinets on the view side. Keep the sink under the window with nothing above it and light the work surface from the ceiling instead of the underside of a cabinet. Where a range needs to be on that wall, a low-profile or downdraft ventilation solution can keep the sightline open.

The other consideration on the bay side is light. Rock Harbor and Skaket face west and get spectacular late afternoon sun that will wash out a glossy countertop and heat a room considerably. We take the orientation into account when specifying finish sheen and when planning where the seating goes.

Orleans has an unusually even mix of full-time residents and properties that are rented for part of the year, and we specify differently for each.

For a year-round Orleans kitchen the priority is how the room performs daily: the work triangle, the landing space, the storage that matches how you actually cook, and finishes chosen because you will look at them every morning for fifteen years. For a property that rents, durability and simplicity move up the list. Quartz rather than marble. Drawer bases so a renter can find the pot without unloading a cupboard. Hardware that will not loosen. Flooring that survives sand and wet feet. A layout legible enough that someone who arrived an hour ago can make dinner in it.

Plenty of Orleans houses are both — lived in nine months and rented for three — and that combination is its own design problem. We are happy to work through it with you.

Consultations are free, whether at your Orleans home or at our showroom at Unit #7, 4250 State Highway in North Eastham, next to Ace Hardware. Bring photos and measurements if you have them; if you do not, we will take them.

Or send us an email to schedule  ·  Monday–Friday 8:00 AM–5:00 PM, Saturday by appointment