Spencer's old village houses and mid-century ranches

Two generations of houses in one large town

Spread across nearly 33 square miles of land, Spencer's roughly 5,700 homes house about 12,000 people, by census figures. The median home dates to 1969, but that middle number hides a spread: about 27 percent of homes predate 1940, while only about 13 percent are newer than 2000. Around six in ten are detached single-family houses, and close to two-thirds are owner-occupied.

So a Spencer remodel can be two very different jobs. One is a house built a century or more ago, with plaster, floors that have settled and a fieldstone or rubble foundation. The other is a one-story ranch or a cape from the 1960s with drywall, a full basement and a kitchen that may already have been redone once on top of the original. Neither gets the other's playbook.

The size of the town matters too. With homes spread over that much land, driveway length, overhead wires and where a dumpster can sit without killing the lawn are things we settle at the first walkthrough rather than on delivery day. On a rural lot, a short conversation about access saves a long morning later.

You get a separate written scope per unit, plus a clear list of anything found once the walls come open.

Ranches and capes from the 1960s

A 1960s ranch is a strong candidate for a full kitchen rebuild, because everything sits on one level and the basement below gives clear access to pipes and wiring. Most owners want the kitchen opened toward the living room. A cape calls for different thinking. Its second floor is cramped under the roof slopes, and a shed dormer that buys full-height ceiling for a bath or a bigger bedroom is often the best use of the house.

Both kinds of house predate 1978, so painted surfaces are treated as possible lead paint and the work is done lead-safe. Wall insulation from that era is often thin or missing, and once a wall is open it gets brought up to current code. Dormers and wall removals count as structural work, so they need a building permit, and Steve supervises them under his unrestricted Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License.

On either kind of house, the roof deserves a look while the plan is still on paper. Roofing is part of what Modern Remodeling does, and a dormer or an addition is the natural moment to deal with shingles near the end of their life and with the ice dams that under-insulated attics tend to build up in a hard Worcester County winter.

Older rentals, private wells and a long drive

About a third of Spencer homes are rented. For a landlord, the goal is a unit back to rentable shape with work that holds up to tenants: durable flooring, solid fixtures, tile set properly instead of glued over a failing floor. You get a separate written scope per unit, plus a clear list of anything found once the walls come open.

If your house runs on a private well and a septic system, one rule matters early. Adding a bedroom on septic brings a Massachusetts Title 5 design-flow review before the permit, and we flag it at the first walkthrough so it never surprises you halfway through. Spencer is about 53 miles northwest of Raynham, which is why deliveries are bundled and you get a written update between every round of site days.

Older multi-unit buildings have usually been divided and redivided over the years, with walls added, stairs closed in and wiring run wherever it happened to fit. Untangling that is slow, careful work. We would rather show you the true condition at the start than spring it on you halfway through, so the first visit includes the basement, the attic and every unit we can get into.