Detroit home renovation and additions
Detroit’s best housing went up between 1910 and 1940, and it went up solid. Brick outside, plaster over wood lath inside, a full basement under all of it. Renovation here usually comes down to two questions: what the electrical and the drain lines need before anything else happens, and where the second living space is hiding.
What we find behind the plaster in a Detroit four-square
Walk into a four-square in the University District or a Tudor revival off Rosedale Park and the bones read the same way. Plaster hangs on wood lath, so opening a wall produces a bucket of keys and dust before the first stud shows. Two-panel doors still swing on their original hinges. The basement runs the full footprint over clay drain tile, which is why basement finishing in this city starts with a camera down the line.
Two conditions decide a budget more often than finishes do. Unrenovated attics still carry knob-and-tube remnants, and plenty of these houses are fed by a 60-amp service that will not run a modern kitchen remodel, a second refrigerator and central air at once. Sixteen completed projects in the city taught us to price the panel and the branch circuits up front rather than discover them in week three, the same way we do across the rest of Wayne County.
Bath count is the other pressure point. Four bedrooms upstairs and one full bath was standard on Boston-Edison and Indian Village blocks, and there is rarely a clean place to put a second one without taking a closet or the corner of a back bedroom. Stacking a new bath over the existing plumbing wall keeps the number sane. Where that will not work, a two-story addition at the rear picks up a bath and a bedroom in one pass.
One more thing about the brick. Most of these walls are solid masonry two or three wythes thick, not a veneer hung on studs. That changes how a new opening gets cut for a rear door or a wider window, because the load above has to land on a steel lintel and the wall has to be needled and shored while the work happens. It also means an exterior wall has no stud cavity to hide insulation, a vent line or a run of romex.
Opening a closed kitchen to the dining room
The wall and the swinging door between kitchen and dining room are the first things most owners want gone. In a brick house that wall is often carrying joists, so the opening needs a header and posts landing on a footing in the basement. Nine-foot ceilings leave a gap above stock uppers, which is why custom cabinets usually price out better than a catalog order.
Second baths on a floor built with one
A 1920s bath with a cast-iron tub, hex tile floor and a wall-hung sink is worth keeping when the tile is sound. When it is not, a bathroom remodel in these houses means opening the wall to the cast-iron waste stack and deciding whether to replace it while it is exposed. That call drives the schedule more than tile selection ever does.
Deep basements that are already half an apartment
Ceiling height is why Detroit basements convert well. Eight feet to the joists is common and the stair usually lands near a side door. A basement apartment needs a code-compliant exit, so an egress window gets cut through the foundation wall and a well set outside. Old clay tile gets sleeved or replaced before framing starts.
Adding room when the side yard gives you nothing
City lots leave four or five feet to the property line, so added space goes back or up. Rear home additions have to answer an existing foundation that is often unreinforced, and we size new footings before drawings get far. Review runs through zoning and building, and permit timelines for Michigan additions are worth reading before you set a move-in date.
Front porches, alley garages and the back yard
The full-width front porch is the face of the house, and rotted columns over a sagging porch deck show up constantly. Out back the garage sits at the alley and the ground between is flat and usable. Outdoor living work here tends to mean a rear deck off the kitchen door and a hard surface running to the garage.
Carriage houses, flats over the garage and other accessory dwellings
More people search for accessory dwelling unit work in Detroit than for any other city question this site receives, and the housing stock explains it. Carriage houses were built for a car and a driver. Above-garage flats got framed and never finished. Side entrances already separate a lower level from the main floor. Accessory dwelling units in Michigan are a full project though, and the details below are where they get decided.
- Finished ceiling height governs everything below grade. Under seven feet, the space cannot be habitable, and lowering the slab becomes a foundation job.
- A second kitchen needs venting of its own and separate branch circuits, and the gas line often has to be resized back at the meter.
- Egress is not negotiable. A sleeping room below grade needs a window with the required clear opening, and a well deeper than 44 inches needs a permanent ladder.
- A garage apartment means proving the existing slab and foundation can carry a second floor before anything else gets drawn.
- Separate utilities are a choice rather than a default. Sub-metering costs far less than a second service and is usually enough.
- Zoning comes before design. Confirm what the parcel allows, then let someone draw a stair.
Cost follows the mechanical work rather than the finishes. A carriage house with no heat, no water and a dirt floor is closer to new construction than to remodeling and deserves to be priced that way. A lower level with a side entrance, a floor drain and eight-foot joists is the cheapest square footage in the city, and it is often where an in-law suite downstairs makes more sense than a rental. We walk both and tell you which one you own.
How a Detroit project runs from first walkthrough to final inspection
Design and construction sit under one contract, which matters most in old houses where drawings change once walls come open. Our design-build approach puts the estimator and the lead carpenter in your house on the same visit. You get a scope with allowances you can see line by line, and a calendar that accounts for inspection windows instead of pretending they take an afternoon.
Ypsilanti sits 35 miles west, so crews stage material the night before rather than running back midday. Owners who compare notes with renovation work in Dearborn or with remodeling in Livonia get the same crews and the same lead. Ask what we would do first. Sometimes the honest answer is the service panel, and the kitchen waits a year.
Tell us what the house needs to do, and we will tell you what that takes.
