Short answer
We remodel kitchens and build additions in Winston-Salem, a city of 257,271 people west of Greensboro. The fact that shapes much of the work is the age of its oldest neighborhoods: West End's 229 mostly residential acres were built largely between 1887 and 1930, and kitchens in houses that old were never laid out for how people cook now.
Opening up kitchens in West End and Ardmore houses
Ardmore is the city's largest neighborhood, and its historic district holds more than 2,000 buildings near the Wake Forest Baptist medical campus. In houses from that period, the kitchen was usually a small room at the back, closed off from the dining room by a wall. Taking that wall out is a frequent request, and whether it carries load decides the budget. We check the framing above before pricing, size a beam if one is needed and patch the floor so the old hardwood runs through.
Older houses also hide surprises behind plaster: undersized wiring, aging drain lines and joists notched for earlier plumbing. We open walls expecting some of that and tell you what we find before anything gets covered back up, so changes to the plan happen early rather than halfway through. Plaster also takes longer to patch than drywall, and we account for that in the schedule.
Adding space without losing an older house's character
When a family outgrows an older house, an addition at the back keeps the street face intact. In 1917 the Reynolds company built 180 houses on 84 acres and sold them to workers at cost, a reminder that many Winston-Salem homes started small. A rear bedroom and bath or an attic conversion under a steep roof adds room the neighbors never see. Rooflines, siding and window proportions on the new part should follow the old house.
At the other end of the market, most homes in Buena Vista near Reynolda House run from about $600,000 to several million dollars. At that level an addition is judged on how well it disappears into the original, so we spend more time on drawings, trim profiles and roof tie-ins before framing starts. Getting the brick, siding and window trim depth right is what makes the difference.
Scheduling work 40 minutes from Greensboro
Winston-Salem is 29.1 road miles west of Greensboro, about 40 minutes, and 39.2 road miles from our Randleman office, near the outer part of our regular area. Over the length of a kitchen remodel or an addition, the distance matters little. We plan larger jobs here so trips line up with inspections and deliveries. Before submitting drawings, we confirm permit requirements with the City of Winston-Salem or Forsyth County, depending on the address.