Exterior Construction

One exterior job instead of four separate ones

A tired exterior rarely fails in one place. The front porch has a soft floor, the entry door sticks, the trim along the eaves is peeling, and the bay window in the living room has been leaking at the sill. Hiring a different company for each piece means four schedules, four opinions about who caused what, and flashing details that never quite meet.

We look at the outside of the house as a whole during the first walkthrough and write one scope that puts the work in the right order. Windows go in before the trim around them is finished. Porch roofs get flashed to the wall before trim covers the joint. Working in sequence is what keeps water out where one piece of work meets another.

Roofing and siding have their own pages because each is a large job on its own. This page covers everything else on the outside of the house, and how we run it alongside a roof or siding project when you are doing both.

Porches, entries and exterior stairs

Porches take the worst of New England weather. Freeze-thaw, standing water and decades of paint leave rotted floorboards, sagging beams, failing column bases and footings that were sometimes just a flat stone on the ground. We open up what is soft, find out how far the damage goes, and rebuild the structure before replacing the visible parts.

Rebuilding a porch usually means new footings below frost, a properly flashed ledger where it meets the house, and framing sized for snow load on the porch roof. Floorboards get the right spacing and pitch so water runs off instead of soaking in. Railings and stairs are built to current code for height and spacing, which on an old house takes a careful design so the new railing still suits the house.

Front entries and exterior stairs get the same treatment. A granite or concrete step that has heaved, a landing that pitches water toward the door, or wood stairs rotted at the stringers are all things we rebuild, with the footing and drainage sorted out first.

Porch ceilings and roofs deserve as much attention as the floor. A porch roof pitched too flat, a beadboard ceiling stained from a hidden leak, or a missing gutter along the porch edge all show up on older houses, and they are easier to fix while the porch is already opened up.

You get a written schedule that shows the order of work and short updates as each part is finished.

Window and door replacements, bay windows included

Replacing a window properly means more than swapping the sash. On an older house we check the rough opening and the framing around it, flash the sill and sides, insulate the gaps around the frame, and trim it out to match the rest of the house. A replacement installed without flashing will leak into the wall, and you will not find out until the plaster stains.

Bay and bow windows are a category of their own. They hang out past the wall, so they need real support from below or cables from above, a roof or cap flashed into the siding, and an insulated floor that does not turn into a cold spot. Many older bays have sagged over the years, so replacing one is often a small structural job as well as a window job.

Entry doors, patio doors and storm doors follow the same rule. The threshold sits on a sill pan so any water that gets past it drains out, the jambs are set plumb and square, and the hardware lines up. If the opening has moved over the decades, we deal with that before the new unit goes in.

Window choice comes down to the house and how you use it. Wood, clad wood, fiberglass and vinyl units differ in how they look, how long they hold paint and how they stand up to coastal air, and true or simulated divided lites matter on an older facade. We walk through the trade-offs opening by opening on your house.

Historic district review on the outside of the house

Many Massachusetts towns have local historic districts, and inside them the historic district commission reviews visible exterior changes before a building permit is issued. Window styles, door designs, porch railings and trim profiles can all come under that review.

If your house is in a district, we find out early and plan the paperwork into the schedule. That usually means drawings or product details showing what is there now and what is proposed, and sometimes a public hearing. It adds time, and we tell you that up front rather than discovering it after materials are ordered.

Even outside a district, an older house deserves details that match its age. We study the existing trim, sill depths and window proportions so the new work looks like it belongs to the house.

Keeping the house closed and the schedule clear

Exterior work happens in the weather, so we never open more than we can close the same day. A window comes out and the new one goes in before we leave. A porch roof that is opened gets tarped and secured. You are not living behind plastic sheeting for a week.

You get a written schedule that shows the order of work and short updates as each part is finished. When we open a wall around a window or pull up a porch floor and find something unexpected, you see photos and the added work in writing before we go further. Steve started Modern Remodeling because he had seen too many contractors leave homeowners guessing about their own house, and that is not how we run a job.

Paint and trim are the last stage of an exterior job and often the part people notice most. Rotted trim at corners, sills and eaves is replaced rather than filled, new wood is primed on every face before it goes up, and joints are detailed so water drains off instead of sitting in them. Older houses get lead-safe practice wherever painted surfaces are disturbed.

At the end, Steve walks the outside of the house with you. Every new window and door is checked for operation and seal, every porch board and railing for fastening, and you get photos of the flashing details that are now covered up.

See the rest of our construction work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.