Wallingford Remodeling & Construction
Wallingford is about as Craftsman-bungalow as Seattle gets: blocks of 1910s–1920s 1.5-story homes on consistent lots, full of families who love the house and the location but have outgrown the second floor. That's why Wallingford is, more than anywhere in the city, dormer-and-second-story country.
Building in Wallingford: the housing stock, the projects, the site notes
The Wallingford housing stock is remarkably consistent — street after street of 1910–1930 Craftsman and Tudor-influenced bungalows, most of them a story-and-a-half with a low, underused attic and a single cramped upstairs bath, if any. Up in the Tangletown pocket around Meridian and the old reservoir, you get slightly larger and more architecturally varied homes, but the theme holds: good bones, period detail worth keeping, and not enough usable upstairs space for a modern family.
That diagnosis is exactly why our Wallingford work skews toward vertical: shed and gable dormers that turn a dark attic into real bedrooms, and full second-story additions ("pop-tops") that double a bungalow's living space without giving up the yard. These are the most architecturally sensitive projects we do — done wrong, a dormer makes a beautiful bungalow look like it grew a wart. We design Wallingford additions to match the original roof pitch, eave depth, window proportions and trim so the addition reads as if it was always there.
A second story is also a structural event. Adding a floor to a 1920 bungalow means we verify the existing foundation, often add or reinforce footings, and bring the load path down through new posts and beams — and because we're already in the structure, a Wallingford pop-top is the ideal moment to fold in a seismic retrofit (foundation bolting and cripple-wall bracing) while the walls are open. We routinely pair the two so you pay once for access.
Alongside the additions, Wallingford families keep us busy with kitchen and bath remodels — opening the classic closed-off bungalow kitchen to the dining room, and carving a real primary bath out of the upstairs. All of it is pre-1978 construction, so EPA Lead-Safe (RRP) practice is standard, and all of it runs through the full SDCI permit and inspection process, which a second-story addition here definitely triggers. We manage that end to end.
Design-build services for Wallingford homes
Design, permitting and craftsmanship under one accountable roof.
Honest Seattle budget ranges
Construction is custom, but you deserve real numbers up front. These are typical Seattle ranges; your fixed bid comes after a free in-home consult in Wallingford.
| Project | Typical Seattle range |
|---|---|
| Bathroom remodel | $25,000 – $60,000 |
| Kitchen remodel | $45,000 – $120,000 |
| Home addition | from $95,000 |
| Whole-home remodel | from $120,000 |
| DADU / backyard cottage | $250,000 – $450,000 |
| Seismic retrofit | $5,000 – $15,000 |
Prices in USD. Every Wallingford project gets a written, fixed-scope estimate after a free in-home consultation. Financing available.
Your Wallingford questions, answered
Can I add a second story to my Wallingford bungalow?
Very often, yes — it's the signature Wallingford project. The key questions are foundation capacity, height limits and roofline design. We verify the structure, design the addition to match your bungalow's original proportions, and handle the SDCI permitting so it gets approved cleanly.
Should I do a dormer or a full second-story addition?
A dormer is the lower-cost way to make an attic livable and add a bedroom or bath; a full second story roughly doubles your living space but costs more and takes longer. We walk your house and budget and show you both options with honest numbers before you decide.
Can you do a seismic retrofit at the same time as my addition?
Yes — and Wallingford is the ideal place to. When we're already opening walls and working the foundation for a second story, adding foundation bolting and cripple-wall bracing costs far less than doing it as a standalone job later. We routinely combine them.
We also build near Wallingford
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