Danvers ranches, splits and older homes, reworked

The mid-sixties house

The median home in Danvers was built around 1964, according to census figures covering roughly 11,500 housing units. Houses of that age in eastern Massachusetts are often ranches and split-levels with one bath for a whole family and a kitchen sized for another era of cooking. They were framed with standard lumber, so opening them up is usually straightforward, but they rarely carry spare capacity anywhere. A split-level adds its own puzzle, with half-flights of stairs and a lower level that sits partly below grade and is often damp.

The work that fits these houses is a kitchen that borrows space from a dining room, a second bath where a closet or hallway used to be, and a dormer or second story that turns a one-level house into something the family can grow into. A second floor on a ranch is a serious structural question, since the existing walls and footings were never sized for it. We look at that honestly before you spend money on drawings.

Electrical service in a 1960s house is often too small for a modern kitchen. A licensed electrician sizes the upgrade and pulls that permit. Bath fans and range hoods should vent outdoors, and in older ranches they often do not.

The schedule accounts for the drive, and you hear about any change before it is made.

Houses built before 1940

About a quarter of Danvers homes predate 1940, and they bring the older-house list with them: plaster and lath, framing that may be balloon style, fieldstone or brick foundations, and the occasional run of knob and tube wiring found when a wall comes down. None of that is a reason to pass on the work. It is a reason to plan for it.

Every home built before 1978 is assumed to have lead paint until shown otherwise, and the work follows lead-safe practices. In practice that means plastic containment, covered floors, controlled demo and a HEPA cleanup before anyone walks through. We also try to keep what is worth keeping in an older house, like original trim and doors, and match it where new work meets old.

Older Danvers houses have usually been added onto over the years: a kitchen ell, an enclosed porch, a bath tucked under the stairs. Each addition was built to whatever standard its builder used. Where old meets newer, we check floor framing, roof tie-ins and foundation transitions, because that is where sagging, leaks and cracked plaster tend to start.

Condos, two-families and investment property

Only about 58 percent of Danvers homes are detached single-family houses, and owner occupancy is around 70 percent. That leaves a real share of condos, two-families and rental buildings, and their owners need different things from a contractor. Rentals and condos each come with a second party to satisfy, an association or a tenant, on top of the building inspector.

A condo remodel runs through the association as well as the building department: work hours, protection for hallways and common areas, and sometimes approval of the plans. A rental unit needs durable finishes and a quick turn. An investor buying a tired two-family can have us walk it and get a written scope of what it will take to bring it up. For an owner living in one side of a two-family, we can phase the units so one stays livable while the other is under construction.

Danvers sits about 45 miles north of Raynham. The schedule accounts for the drive, and you hear about any change before it is made.