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Talk to an Expert (504) 383-9473
Remodeling a kitchen in a historic New Orleans home means working within narrow shotgun footprints, load-bearing party walls, and elevated foundations while keeping the exterior compliant with local historic district rules. Interior work like kitchen renovations generally does not require Historic District Landmarks Commission approval, but any exterior changes, such as new vents or windows, do. A contractor familiar with shotgun houses, Creole cottages, and double-gallery homes can balance modern function with the home’s original character.
At Big Easy Kitchens, we remodel kitchens inside some of New Orleans’ most character-filled homes, from Bywater shotguns to Garden District double-gallery houses. We understand that a historic home kitchen project involves more than choosing cabinets; it also means respecting the framing, foundation, and district rules that come with an older New Orleans property.
Many of these homes date back over a century, built long before modern plumbing, ventilation, or open-concept layouts were standard. Every remodel has to work with what’s already there: narrow rooms, old framing, and a roofline or gallery that can’t simply be moved.
If you’re planning a kitchen remodel for a shotgun house, Creole cottage, or double-gallery home, this guide walks through what makes historic New Orleans kitchens different and how we handle them. Contact us today to start planning your historic home kitchen remodel.
Historic New Orleans homes come in a few distinct shapes, and each one creates its own kitchen remodeling constraints. Knowing which type you own is the first step to planning a remodel that fits the house instead of fighting it.
Shotgun houses are typically no more than about 12 feet wide, with rooms lined up one behind the other and a door at each end. That footprint fits the standard 30-by-120-foot New Orleans lot, but it leaves little room for a wide kitchen island or a separate pantry.
Most shotgun kitchens sit at the back of the house in a single narrow run, often bordered by a party wall shared with the neighboring half of a double shotgun. Any remodel has to work within that long, narrow shape rather than trying to reconfigure it into an open floor plan.
Creole cottages, most built between 1790 and 1850, are one to one-and-a-half stories, two rooms wide and two rooms deep, with hipped or steeply pitched roofs and deep overhangs. Their compact, boxy layout means the kitchen is often a smaller room off the back gallery rather than a large dedicated space.
The heavy timber framing and Norman truss roof systems in these cottages limit how much a remodel can change the room’s footprint. We plan cabinetry and appliance placement around the existing room shape instead of pushing walls.
Double-gallery houses, built mostly between 1820 and 1850, are two stories with a deep, columned gallery across the front and a side-gabled or hipped roof. Kitchens in these homes are usually toward the rear of the ground floor, sometimes in a space that was added or reworked over the decades.
Because the house sits further back from the property line with a prominent street-facing gallery, most kitchen work stays entirely interior and doesn’t touch the features that define the home’s curb appeal. That gives more remodeling flexibility than a shotgun’s narrow footprint allows.
Many historic New Orleans homes are raised off the ground on piers, a building tradition that traces back to French and Spanish colonial-era practices for managing flooding from the river and lake. That elevation affects how new plumbing and gas lines get routed to a remodeled kitchen, since lines often run beneath the raised floor instead of through a slab. Older framing and flooring were also built to handle humidity and periodic wetting, which means matching materials and access points matters more than in a typical slab-foundation home.
Not every historic New Orleans neighborhood is regulated the same way, and the rules that apply to your street can change what your remodel needs to clear before work starts. Here’s how the major local districts compare.
| Historic District | Governing Body | Control Level | What Typically Needs Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| French Quarter (Vieux Carré) | Vieux Carré Commission | Full control | All exterior work visible from the street |
| Faubourg Marigny | HDLC | Full control | All exterior work visible from the right-of-way |
| Garden District | HDLC | Partial control (since 2007) | New construction, demolition, demolition by neglect |
| Interior renovations (any district) | N/A | N/A | Not subject to HDLC or Vieux Carré Commission review |
The Historic District Landmarks Commission oversees 14 local historic districts across New Orleans, split into full-control and partial-control categories. In full-control districts, the commission generally reviews all exterior work visible from the street or right-of-way.
In partial-control districts, oversight is lighter and focuses mainly on demolition, demolition by neglect, and new construction rather than routine exterior repairs. Knowing which category your block falls into tells you how much exterior review a kitchen remodel’s related work, like a new vent or window, might trigger.
The French Quarter is not regulated by the Historic District Landmarks Commission. It falls under a separate body, the Vieux Carré Commission, established under the Louisiana Constitution to oversee that specific neighborhood.
If your historic kitchen remodel is inside the French Quarter, exterior questions go to the Vieux Carré Commission rather than HDLC, even though the two agencies operate on similar principles. Confirming which commission has jurisdiction over your address early keeps a remodel timeline from getting stuck on the wrong review board.
Exterior work in an HDLC or Vieux Carré Commission district generally requires a Certificate of Appropriateness before construction begins. Starting exterior work without one can result in a stop-work order until the certificate is obtained.
For a kitchen remodel, this usually only comes into play when the project touches something visible from the street, such as a new exterior vent, window change, or addition. Timelines and requirements vary by district and scope of work, so we recommend confirming current requirements with the relevant commission or a licensed contractor familiar with your neighborhood.
Interior renovations, including kitchens, generally fall outside HDLC and Vieux Carré Commission review, since both bodies focus on what’s visible from the public right-of-way.
That means most of a kitchen remodel, including cabinetry, countertops, layout changes, and interior plumbing, can move forward without a Certificate of Appropriateness. The exception is anything that breaks through an exterior wall or roofline, like a new range hood vent, which shifts that specific piece of the project into exterior review. We flag those details early so permitting doesn’t slow down the rest of the remodel.
Beyond permitting, historic homes bring physical challenges that shape what’s possible inside the kitchen itself. These four issues come up on nearly every historic remodel we take on.
Many shotgun houses share a load-bearing party wall with the neighboring half of the house, and Creole cottages rely on heavy timber framing that carries real structural weight. Opening a wall between the kitchen and the next room isn’t always possible without additional support, and sometimes isn’t possible at all.
We evaluate which walls are structural before finalizing a layout, so the design plan doesn’t promise an open concept the framing can’t support. That evaluation happens early, before cabinetry or plumbing decisions lock in the layout.
A shotgun kitchen’s narrow width usually rules out a center island or a wide L-shaped layout. Instead, most of these remodels use an efficient galley configuration, running cabinetry and counter space along one or both long walls.
Our small kitchen remodeling approach focuses on storage-dense cabinetry, full-height uppers, and appliance placement that keeps the narrow room functional without feeling cramped. The goal is a kitchen that works for daily cooking, not one that pretends the footprint is bigger than it is.
Older homes weren’t built with modern kitchen loads in mind, so adding a dishwasher, garbage disposal, or additional outlets often means running new lines through framing that was never designed for them.
On raised, pier-supported homes, plumbing frequently routes beneath the floor rather than through a slab, which changes how a remodel accesses those lines. We plan the rough-in work around the home’s actual framing and foundation type instead of assuming a standard slab-home layout. That planning step avoids surprises once demolition opens up the walls and floor.
New Orleans’ humidity and flood-prone climate shaped the raised, pier-supported construction common to shotgun houses, Creole cottages, and double-gallery homes. That same climate means kitchen materials need to handle moisture and periodic wetting better than they would in a drier region.
Cabinet materials, subflooring, and finishes all get chosen with that humidity in mind, not just for appearance. A remodel that ignores the local climate tends to show wear far sooner than one built for it.
Once we understand the home’s structure and the district’s permitting rules, the remodel itself comes down to design decisions that respect what’s already there. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
We start with the home’s existing footprint rather than proposing a layout that requires moving load-bearing walls or altering the roofline. Our kitchen design process maps storage, appliance placement, and workflow around the rooms that are already there, whether that’s a shotgun’s narrow run or a Creole cottage’s boxier layout.
This keeps the project focused on interior work, which helps avoid unnecessary exterior review. It also keeps the home’s original character intact instead of erasing it.
Stock cabinet dimensions rarely fit a historic kitchen’s non-standard walls, angled corners, or narrow galley width. Our custom kitchen cabinets are built to the room’s actual dimensions, maximizing storage in a footprint that can’t simply be widened.
We also account for period details like deep window casings, transoms, and door swings when planning cabinet placement. The result is storage that feels intentional rather than squeezed in as an afterthought.
For homeowners who want their new kitchen to feel consistent with the rest of a historic house, we select materials and finishes that echo the home’s original era without sacrificing modern function. That might mean beadboard-style cabinet fronts, period-appropriate hardware, or flooring that matches an adjoining Creole cottage room.
These choices are about aesthetics, not permitting, since interior finishes fall outside HDLC and Vieux Carré Commission review. Homeowners who want a more modern kitchen inside a historic shell have that option too, since interior style is entirely up to the owner.
When a remodel does need an exterior tie-in, like relocating a vent stack or adding an exhaust termination point, we identify that early and coordinate the paperwork alongside the interior build-out. That keeps a single exterior detail from holding up the entire project timeline.
We work directly with homeowners to confirm which commission, HDLC or the Vieux Carré Commission, has jurisdiction over their address before finalizing exterior details. That upfront coordination is often the difference between a smooth remodel and a stalled one.
A historic New Orleans home rewards owners who work with its original structure instead of against it. At Big Easy Kitchens, we bring that same approach to every shotgun house, Creole cottage, and double-gallery kitchen remodel we take on.
The right team plans around your home’s framing, foundation, and district rules from day one instead of discovering problems mid-project. Call us today to plan a kitchen remodel that respects your historic New Orleans home.
Interior kitchen work generally does not require review from the Historic District Landmarks Commission or the Vieux Carré Commission, since both bodies review exterior changes only. You may still need standard City of New Orleans building, plumbing, or electrical permits for the interior work itself, separate from historic district review.
No. The Historic District Landmarks Commission’s review authority applies to exterior work visible from the street or public right-of-way, not interior renovations. A kitchen remodel that stays entirely inside the home, covering cabinetry, layout, plumbing, and finishes, typically falls outside HDLC’s jurisdiction entirely.
A Certificate of Appropriateness is the approval a property owner needs before starting exterior work in an HDLC or Vieux Carré Commission district. It applies to changes visible from the street, such as new windows, siding, or additions, and starting that work without one can trigger a stop-work order.
No, the French Quarter is regulated by the Vieux Carré Commission, a separate body established specifically for that neighborhood under the Louisiana Constitution. If your kitchen remodel involves exterior work in the French Quarter, that review goes through the Vieux Carré Commission rather than HDLC.
It depends on whether the wall is load-bearing or part of a shared party wall structure common to double shotguns. We evaluate the home’s framing before finalizing any layout that removes or opens a wall, since some shotgun walls carry structural weight that can’t be removed without added support.
We use custom, storage-dense cabinetry built to the room’s actual dimensions rather than stock sizes that assume a standard modern layout. Full-height uppers, galley configurations, and thoughtful appliance placement let a narrow shotgun or Creole cottage kitchen function well without widening the original footprint.
In a full-control district, the HDLC generally reviews all exterior work visible from the street, including repairs and alterations. In a partial-control district, oversight is lighter and focuses mainly on demolition, demolition by neglect, and new construction rather than routine exterior work.
Yes. Homes raised on piers often route plumbing beneath the floor rather than through a slab, which changes how a remodel accesses and reroutes those lines. We plan rough-in work around the home’s actual foundation type instead of assuming a standard slab layout.
By Admin 
Jul 15, 2026