Updating Bellingham's 1970s houses

A town built mostly in the seventies

Census figures show about 17,000 people and roughly 6,600 homes in Bellingham, with a median year built of 1975. Only around 11 percent of the houses predate 1940, while close to 18 percent were built since 2000. The housing leans heavily on that middle stretch of the twentieth century.

That era gave Massachusetts a lot of raised ranches, split-levels and garrison colonials. They tend to be solid houses with a predictable layout: a closed kitchen, a separate dining room, a small main bath and a lower level that was finished cheaply or not at all. About 72 percent of Bellingham homes are single-family detached and nearly 80 percent are lived in by their owners, so these are the rooms people want reworked.

Houses of this age are also reaching the point where original systems wear out together. Fifty-year-old windows, roofs on their second or third layer, tired bathrooms and kitchens that have had one cosmetic update in the nineties tend to come due in the same decade. Planning them as one sequence, rather than one emergency at a time, usually saves the owner a lot of disruption.

You know which days we are on site, what is happening that week and when inspections are booked.

Opening up a raised ranch or split-level

The most common request in a house from this period is to take down the wall between the kitchen and the living or dining room. Sometimes that wall carries nothing. Often it carries part of the roof or the floor above. We check before anyone swings a hammer, and if it is bearing we explain what a beam and posts would involve so you can decide with the full picture.

Split-levels and raised ranches also have lower levels that can become real living space: a family room, a bedroom, a bath or an office. Finishing that space well means dealing with moisture first, then framing, insulation and egress where a bedroom is planned. If the house is on a septic system, adding a bedroom brings a Title 5 design-flow review, and we flag that early.

Houses from the seventies were built before today's energy rules. When walls or ceilings are open, insulation and air sealing follow the code in effect for your town, including the stretch energy code where it has been adopted. That work tends to make the house noticeably more comfortable. Some houses built in the late sixties and early seventies also used aluminum branch wiring, which a licensed electrician should look at whenever walls are open.

Planning work 24 miles from Raynham

Bellingham is about 24 miles northwest of Raynham, on the western side of the area we cover. That distance is easy to manage with a clear schedule. You know which days we are on site, what is happening that week and when inspections are booked.

Steve keeps the communication plain. The scope is on paper before work begins. If you want something changed halfway, you see what it adds in writing and say yes or no before the crew touches it, and updates come to you without having to chase them. Each day ends with the site picked up and the rest of your house protected.

For the newer homes in town, built since 2000, the work is usually lighter on structure and heavier on finishes: kitchens and baths with builder-grade materials that owners now want to replace with custom tile, better cabinetry and layouts that fit how they actually cook and live. Those houses are also a good place to add what the original builder left out, such as a mudroom off the garage, a better laundry space or a deck sized for how the yard is used.