I'm looking to add a kitchen to the bottom floor of a house.  I been looking around trying to understand if there are any laws against it, rules, permitting, etc that I should know.  is there anything I should be aware of before starting such a project?

Definitely talk to zoning/permits departments. You could run into a possible issue with a future appraisal, we've run into issues in the past with appraisers refusing to classify these properties as SF. 

Adam, what was the resolution when you ran into the appraisal problems?