Hand-vetted contractors for kitchens, bathrooms, ADUs, and whole-home remodels across the Easton Addition, Lyon-Hoag, Mills Estate, and Ray Park. We match Burlingame homeowners with builders who know the city design-review process.
Burlingame's older core is some of the most cohesive prewar housing stock on the Peninsula. The Easton Addition, the city's first subdivision platted back in 1896, is full of 1920s and 1930s Spanish and Mediterranean Revival, Tudor, Colonial, and English-style homes on flat, tree-lined lots that run around 6,000 square feet. The Burlingables (Lyon-Hoag) blocks mix architectural styles on wider-than-typical streets and sit at the more attainable end of the city. Mills Estate to the north brings postwar stock, and Ray Park and the hillside edge toward I-280 add mid-century and larger custom homes.
Renovating in Burlingame is as much about the front-end design review as the construction. We match local homeowners with contractors who have carried projects through the city's Planning Commission Design Review and the Residential Design Guidebook, which is the real gate on second-story additions and new houses here. The work we place runs a tier above the county base, from down-to-studs renovations of pre-1940 Easton Addition homes to kitchen openings, primary-suite additions, and detached ADUs across the flats.
Realistic 2026 cost ranges based on the projects our contractors are actually pricing in Burlingame right now.
The most common Burlingame project. The typical scope opens a wall between the kitchen and the living or dining room, replaces dated cabinets with shaker or slab fronts, adds quartz or stone counters, and builds an island with new electrical. In the prewar Easton Addition and Lyon-Hoag homes, rerouting plumbing and wiring through 1920s and 1930s framing is what pushes these kitchens toward the upper end of the range.
Baths in Burlingame's older stock tend to be small, often with original tile and a single tub-shower combo. Most projects expand into an adjacent closet or hallway to fit a curbless walk-in shower, a double vanity, and heated floors. On pre-1940 homes, opening up a bathroom frequently means correcting decades-old plumbing and adding structure before the finish work begins.
Burlingame follows California ADU law, and the flat ~6,000 square foot lots across the Easton Addition and Lyon-Hoag suit detached units and garage conversions. Note that the city's ADU ordinance drew California HCD findings in April 2024 requiring amendments on ministerial review and rental terms, and ADUs are not allowed on parcels created by an SB 9 urban lot split. We match these projects with contractors who track the current rules.
Browse ADU models →Common for buyers of older Easton Addition and Mills Estate homes who renovate down to the studs, and for owners adding a second story or a primary suite. On the prewar stock expect full systems replacement plus foundation bolting and cripple-wall shear bracing. New houses and most second-story additions also have to clear Planning Commission Design Review before the building permit, which is part of the timeline.
Building permits run through the City of Burlingame Community Development Department, Building Division at 501 Primrose Road, 2nd Floor. Counter hours are Monday through Thursday, 8a to 4p (closed noon to 1p), with Friday by appointment. The front-end gate is design review, not the building counter: all new houses, most second-story additions, and some single-story additions require an application to the Planning Commission for Design Review against the Residential Design Guidebook and the R-1 District regulations. The Building Division accepts submittals only after the Planning Commission approves the project or grants an exemption.
Most exterior residential work in Burlingame routinely triggers Planning Commission Design Review against the city's setback, lot coverage, height, and floor-area-ratio standards. Historic preservation runs through Municipal Code Chapter 25.35, a voluntary local-register program tied to the Downtown Specific Plan inventory rather than a single named overlay district. The Planning Commission also sits as the Historic Preservation Commission, and the Director reviews historic resource applications within 30 days, so a property flagged as potentially significant adds a review step worth planning around.
The San Andreas Fault runs along the western boundary of the city, and large parts of eastern Burlingame on the bay flats are highly susceptible to liquefaction under the California Geological Survey Seismic Hazard Zone maps released in April 2019. On east-side parcels expect liquefaction-driven foundation engineering, and on older pre-1940 homes expect standard foundation-bolting and cripple-wall shear adders during a major remodel. The incorporated core on the flats is not a wildland-interface area; the city publishes a Fire Hazard Severity Zones map, and any fire-zone exposure is concentrated on the hillside edge toward I-280.
Tell us about your project. A matchmaker will call you within one business day and hand-pick 2–5 contractors from our vetted network who have worked in Burlingame before.
Or call (925) 693-7590
