Braintree's postwar homes, built out right

The housing behind Braintree's numbers

Braintree has about 38,700 people and roughly 15,000 homes, according to census figures. The median house dates to 1957. Around 28 percent were built before 1940 and about 15 percent since 2000, which leaves a wide middle made up of postwar Capes, ranches and modest colonials.

Detached single-family houses make up around 64 percent of the stock, and owners live in about 77 percent of homes. The rest is a mix of two-families, condos and apartments. That spread means the work here ranges widely: a family expanding a Cape, a condo owner redoing a kitchen inside association rules, a landlord bringing a rental unit up to date.

Braintree sits on the South Shore as part of Greater Boston, and many of its postwar houses have changed hands two or three times since they were built. Each owner tends to leave a layer behind: a finished attic, a sunroom, a basement bath. Part of our first walkthrough is sorting out which of those layers were built properly and which will need to come out before the new work goes in.

If we find something like that, you hear about it the same day, along with what it takes to fix it properly.

Adding space to a fifties Cape or ranch

Postwar Capes were built with expansion in mind but rarely finished well. The second floor is often two cramped rooms under a steep roof. Dormers, a full shed dormer across the back or a rear addition can turn that into usable bedrooms and a bath. Ranches tend to grow out the back or up, and the right answer depends on the foundation, the roof framing and the lot.

We start with what the house can support. Older rafters and ceiling joists were not sized for a second floor of living space, so the plan accounts for reinforcement where it is needed, and stairs to a new upper floor need room the original layout rarely left for them. New footings are dug to below the frost line, which in Massachusetts commonly means about four feet down. Permits run through the town building department, with inspections for framing, insulation and final, and licensed electricians and plumbers handle their parts of the job.

Houses this age often have had several owners' worth of projects. A bathroom may sit on a joist someone notched decades ago. If we find something like that, you hear about it the same day, along with what it takes to fix it properly. Finding problems like that is not bad news on its own. It is the reason to open a house carefully and look before committing to a plan, rather than discovering it after the tile is down.

Older and newer homes in the same town

The prewar houses in Braintree bring plaster walls, older wiring and lead paint risk, which calls for lead-safe work practices during renovation. The homes built since 2000 bring a different request: opening up rooms and replacing finishes that owners have outgrown. We treat each one on its own terms.

Braintree is about 19 miles north of Raynham, a short trip for a crew based in Bristol County. Steve keeps you informed through every stage. Before the first board comes off, you have the scope in writing. A change order is a short written note with its price, approved by you before it happens. At the end of every workday the house is swept and the work area closed up.

Condo and two-family owners should expect a little more coordination. Association approvals, shared walls and tenants in the other unit all affect scheduling, and we plan around them from the start. A landlord updating a unit between tenants usually wants a defined scope and a firm order of work, and we write the proposal that way so there is no confusion about what is included.