If your Sunnyside home has a generous floor plan but a kitchen that still reflects the decade it was built, with soffits over the cabinets and a peninsula boxing in the cook, you’re working with good raw material. When the bones are sound, these houses reward a careful remodel.

Irrigation, a vineyard and a golf club

Fresno’s early history ties the Sunnyside district to 1867, when Anthony Easterby bought land bounded by today’s Chestnut, Belmont, Clovis and California avenues. Unable to grow wheat without water, he hired Moses Church in 1870 to build an irrigation system, work that led to the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company.

In 1911 a group of prominent Fresnans opened the Sunnyside Country Club golf course, designed by William P. Bell, on part of an old vineyard; its mid-century modern clubhouse dates from 1948. The community was once called Maltermoro, after a postmaster whose post office ran from 1894 to 1913.

Estate lots and custom homes

A historic context on mid-century modernism prepared for the City of Fresno describes the neighborhood, on the city’s far east side, as featuring large estate-size lots with custom homes, many of them architect designed. Census estimates for the Sunnyside census-designated place, home to about 5,000 people, show a median home built around 1966 and roughly seven in ten homes built between 1950 and 1979. About 81% are owner-occupied, well above the citywide Fresno estimate of about 50%.

Custom and architect-designed houses vary more than tract homes, so layouts, ceiling heights and built-ins can differ from one lot to the next. We plan around what your house actually has rather than a standard footprint, and original features in good condition may be worth keeping.

Kitchens built for another era

Kitchens from these decades were usually closed off from the family room, with soffits above the upper cabinets and space planned for fewer appliances. Opening a wall or moving a sink raises framing, plumbing and electrical questions that engineering or licensed trades evaluate in person, and our open versus closed kitchen guide lays out the tradeoffs. If the footprint already works, new cabinets, counters and lighting can do a lot on their own.

Original tile baths

Many baths in houses of this age still have their original tile around a tub and shower combination. Replacing a tired combination with a tiled walk-in shower, improving the exhaust fan and adding vanity storage are sensible starting points. In a house built before 1978, any paid work that disturbs paint has to follow federal lead-safe rules, which shapes demolition and cleanup.

County or city: check your address

The census-designated place is unincorporated, so homes inside it get building permits from Fresno County’s Department of Public Works and Planning. Other parts of the area that carry the name, including Sunnyside High School, sit inside Fresno city limits, where City of Fresno Building and Safety is the permit office. We confirm which permits your project needs during the consultation; see our Fresno County permit guide for the county process.

Getting started from southeast Fresno

Sunnyside is about 10 minutes east of our Fresno shop. Kitchen remodels generally begin around $25,000 and bathrooms around $15,000; full layout changes or premium selections can take a kitchen to $50,000 to $60,000 and a bathroom to $30,000 to $40,000. The kitchen estimator gives you a personalized planning range, not a quote, before anyone visits.