Whole-home renovation in Chagrin Falls

Plaster on wood lath does not behave like drywall. It cracks a room away from where you hit it, it hides framing nobody drew, and it makes dust that has to be contained rather than swept. A whole-house renovation opens most of that at once. Wiring runs in a wall that was never furred, a brick chimney sits where a duct wants to go, and the basement underneath is stone or early block without a modern drain.

Before any of that, the address has to be the Village. About ten municipalities share a Chagrin Falls mailing address, and the Cuyahoga County auditor's tax district is what settles which one you are in. If the bill does not read Chagrin Falls Village, then the clerk, the board and the historic rule are all somewhere else. That line gets checked before anything is drawn, because a whole-house scope filed at the wrong hall costs months.

The photographs on this page are from our own jobs on Cleveland’s east side. Each caption says what is in the frame and when. None is presented as work in Chagrin Falls.

Lots were drawn before the car, so kitchens sit on party-line side yards and there is nowhere to stage material except the street or the front lawn. That shows up as protection, hauling and short delivery windows rather than as one line called mobilization. Stairs are narrow. Cabinets, a tub and a furnace all come through openings sized for furniture, and sometimes a window has to come out to let them in.

Basements are stone or early block, often without a modern drain, so a plan that puts a bath or a laundry below grade turns into a pit, a pump and trench work before any finish is chosen. Brick chimneys are the other quiet cost. They are usually in the way of a duct run, rarely lined for a modern appliance, and what happens to them is settled on the estimate instead of inside the wall.