Sharon's long-held houses, brought up to date

What the census figures say about Sharon houses

Sharon is home to about 18,500 people in roughly 6,500 housing units, and census figures put the median year built at 1971. Around one house in six predates 1940. Fewer than one in ten went up after 2000, so most of the town's homes are forty to sixty years old and have been through at least one round of updates already.

Close to nine in ten Sharon homes are owner-occupied, one of the higher shares anywhere in Norfolk County, and about four in five are single-family detached houses. That combination shapes the work. People here are rarely fixing a house up to sell it. They are redoing the kitchen they have cooked in for fifteen years, or replacing a cramped bathroom with one that will hold up through the next fifteen.

A town that has added little new housing in two decades ages in place. The raised ranches, split-levels and garrison colonials of the late 1960s and 1970s are reaching the point where original windows, older electrical panels and tired subfloor around an old tub all turn up in the same project. With so few new houses arriving, the ones already standing carry nearly all of the town's remodeling, and many had a kitchen or bath redone once already, often in the 1990s. Those earlier updates are dated now too, and sometimes they were laid over problems that should have been fixed first.

When one comes up, we write it down and price it before the work goes ahead, so nothing lands on you at the end.

Working on houses built around 1970

A house from this era is usually sound, but it was built to the habits of its time. Kitchens were closed off from the living room, bathrooms were small and insulation was thin by current standards. When a client asks to open a wall, the first thing we find out is whether it carries load. If it does, you hear that at the walkthrough, along with what a beam and posts would involve, before anyone swings a hammer.

Most Sharon projects need a permit through the town building department under 780 CMR, the Massachusetts State Building Code, with inspections at rough framing, insulation and final, plus the licensed electrician's and plumber's own inspections. Steve holds an unrestricted Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License, the license for supervising structural work on one- and two-family homes like these.

About one Sharon home in six is older than 1940. In those houses we plan for plaster walls, older framing and the chance of lead paint, which calls for lead-safe work practices under the EPA renovation rule. It changes how we set up containment and cleanup, and we explain that before the job starts.

Fourteen miles up the road from Raynham

Sharon sits about fourteen miles northwest of our base in Raynham. A site visit fits easily into a working day, and a question during the job gets answered in person rather than over a long text thread. That matters on a remodel, when small decisions about trim, tile layout or an outlet location come up every week. It also means we can get to the house quickly if a delivery arrives early or an inspector has a question.

Because owners here usually live in the house during the work, we plan the job around you: a written scope you can read at the kitchen table, a clear answer about which rooms will be out of service and roughly for how long, dust protection on the rooms you still use, and a site that is swept and picked up at the end of each day.

Changes happen on every remodel. When one comes up, we write it down and price it before the work goes ahead, so nothing lands on you at the end. That kind of communication is what Steve found missing in his years working for other builders, and it is the reason Modern Remodeling exists.