High-End Home Renovations

Renovating a good house without changing its plan

Some houses do not need their walls moved. A well-built colonial or Victorian with sound framing, plaster walls, a real staircase and hardwood floors usually has a plan that still works. What it needs is the rest brought current: wiring that predates the way a family uses power now, plumbing that has been patched for decades, heat that runs unevenly, a tired kitchen and baths, windows and walls that leak air.

That is the work on this page. The rooms stay where they are. We replace what is worn out, update what is behind the walls and refinish what can be saved, and we are careful about the difference between those three. Taking an old house apart is easy. Putting it back so you cannot tell where the new work stops is the skill, and it is what owners of good houses ask us for.

We start with a walkthrough of the whole house, basement and attic included, because the systems that feed every room start there. Steve looks at the electrical panel and wiring, the age of the plumbing, the heating plant and how it distributes heat, the insulation and the framing wherever it is visible. From that walk you get a written scope that separates what must be replaced, what should be updated and what can reasonably wait, so you decide what goes into this round of work.

Protecting what stays

Before anything is removed we walk the house with you and agree on what stays: the newel post and balustrade, paneled doors, original casings, built-in cabinets, oak or heart pine floors, decorative plaster. Those items go on the written scope as protected, and the crew treats them that way. Stairs get boxed in, floors get a hard protection layer rather than a drop cloth, and doors that come off are labeled with exactly where they go back.

Old houses have conditions you have to respect. Houses built before 1978 may have lead paint on trim and walls, and disturbing it follows lead-safe work practices under the EPA renovation rule. Plaster cracks if someone hammers near it carelessly. Old hardwood scorches if a tool gets dragged across it. We plan the sequence so the dirty, heavy work happens before finished surfaces are uncovered, and the site is cleaned every day.

If you are living in the house during the renovation, we work room by room or floor by floor where we can, seal the work areas with dust walls and keep the paths you use clean. Some days, usually when water or power is shut off, are harder than others, and those are scheduled with you in advance.

Some days, usually when water or power is shut off, are harder than others, and those are scheduled with you in advance.

Matching plaster, trim and old hardwood

When a wall is opened to run new wiring or plumbing, it has to close back up looking like plaster. That usually means patching with a plaster system or skim-coating the repair so the surface takes light the same way the original wall does. A drywall patch with a sharp edge in the middle of a hundred-year-old wall is the first thing anyone notices.

Trim gets the same attention. Where a casing or baseboard is damaged or missing, we have new stock run to the existing profile rather than finding something close at the lumber yard. Hardwood cut for a register or a new pipe is woven back in with boards of the same species and width, and when the floors are refinished the new pieces disappear into the old. Stair treads and nosings are repaired in place when they can be, because a replaced tread on an old stair rarely matches its neighbors.

Where a true match is not possible, we tell you before the work is done and show you what the options look like side by side.

Windows are part of this too. In a house with original sash and trim, replacement or restoration has to respect the interior casings and the exterior profile, and if the house sits in a local historic district, exterior changes go before the commission for review first.

Bringing systems current behind finished walls

Much of the work in this kind of renovation is invisible once it is done. Older Massachusetts houses regularly turn up knob-and-tube wiring during demolition, along with cast iron drains near the end of their life, galvanized supply lines and balloon framing that lets air and fire travel between floors.

We work with licensed electricians and plumbers who know how to fish wire and pipe through old walls with the fewest openings, and we place those openings where they are easiest to repair. Where the stretch energy code applies, insulation and air sealing follow it, and in a balloon-framed house that includes fire blocking at each floor. Rough inspections through your building department happen before anything closes up.

If we open a wall and find a rotted sill, an undersized beam or a notched joist, you hear about it that day with photos and an explanation. Nothing gets covered over to keep the schedule on track.

How we keep you posted

Owners of good old houses tend to care about details, and they deserve to know what is happening to them. You know who is on site, what they are doing that week and what is coming next. Changes are written and priced before the work is done, and you see the house at each stage rather than only at the end.

Steve's standard is better communication and making sure the job is done right. On a house like this, that means a plaster patch is not called finished until it disappears, and trim is not called matched until it actually matches.

At the end of the job we walk every room with you, not only the ones that changed most, and list anything that is not right. Small things count: a door that rubs after new flooring went down, a register that sits proud of the floor, a switch plate that is crooked. They are fixed before the job is called done.

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