Home remodelingin Fortville, IN
Bathrooms, kitchens and basements in Fortville. We are a 15-minute drive away in Fishers, we pull the permit through the Town of Fortville, and the crew that walks your house is the crew that builds the job.
We have been opening walls in Hancock County since 2012
Fortville kept its Main Street, and the housing around it kept its age. Much of the older town stock is pre-1940 — small, well-built houses with original trim worth saving and mechanical systems that are not. Newer building sits on the outskirts.
- Pre-war houses with original millwork and door casings that are worth matching rather than replacing wholesale
- Single small bathrooms in houses with two or three bedrooms, where the practical change is a full re-plan of one room rather than an addition
- Basements that were cellars first — lower ceilings and older concrete, which decides straight away whether finishing them is realistic
What each of them means in Fortville
Bathroom remodeling in Fortville
On the Main Street grid the bathroom was carved out later, from a bedroom corner, a back porch or the space under the stair, and the room still reads that way: a waste stack buried in an exterior wall, supply lines run the shortest way rather than a sensible one, and a door too narrow to carry a tub through. We take the casing off more often than we open a wall. Under the finish floor there is usually one-inch board subfloor over full-dimension joists, often laid diagonally, with felt and old sheet goods over it. Board flexes between joists and large-format tile finds that flex, so the floor gets its deflection checked, an underlayment layer and a flatness pass before any tile is set. If the supply is galvanized and the drain is cast iron, that is the moment to replace back to the stack, while the floor is already open. Plaster over lath is rarely plumb across a five-foot run, so vanities, tub aprons and shower glass get scribed rather than pushed tight and caulked. Ventilation is the other pre-war gap: these rooms were vented by a window, and an Indiana August is the argument for a fan ducted outdoors rather than into the attic. On the newer edges it inverts, a one-piece fiberglass surround that has to be cut apart to leave the room, and a fan someone terminated in the soffit.
Kitchen remodeling in Fortville
In a pre-war Fortville house the kitchen is at the back and often newer than the house. A rear addition on a shallow crawl or slab meets original framing at a floor that steps, and joist direction often changes at that seam. We find it before anyone talks about one floor running to the dining room. Two things sit in the way here more often than on the newer edges. The first is the brick chimney base in the kitchen wall that took a cook stove. If a water heater or furnace still vents into it, it stays; if not, it is still carrying brick to the roof and comes out as its own line, not twelve inches of counter. The second is the wall between kitchen and dining, often bearing to the center beam; joist direction in the basement tells us, not the plan. Under a hand-laid stone foundation there is often no footing where the new post lands, so a pad gets poured first. Then the panel. These kitchens were wired for a light and a receptacle. A current one needs two twenty-amp small-appliance circuits, GFCI at the counter, and separate circuits for dishwasher and disposal, frequently more than the old service will carry. Outside the town mains there may be no gas at the street, which settles gas against electric early. Both lines belong in the estimate, not in a discovery at rough-in.
Basement finishing in Fortville
Fortville has two kinds of basement and little in between. Under the old grid they are cellars: partial depth, hand-laid stone or brick, a thin rat slab or dirt floor, no footing drain, and a gravity-era duct trunk hung low enough to settle the question by itself. Habitable space needs seven feet of finished ceiling, and the only ways to buy that back are rerouting mechanicals or lowering the floor. Lowering a floor beside a hand-laid wall is underpinning, an engineer's drawing before it is our work. Plenty of these are better served as dry, lit, insulated storage than by a plan that will not pass. Two things follow. Radon is one: Zone 1 here, and a dirt or broken floor changes what a mitigation system seals to, so test before anything gets framed. The other is the emergency escape opening, which the code wants in a finished basement, bedroom or not, and in a stone wall it is not a saw cut: the opening gets framed and supported, the well needs somewhere to drain in clay, and the spoil leaves through whatever side yard the lot has. The newer edges are a different job: nineties subdivisions often on block, later ones poured, sometimes a bath rough-in already in the slab. Wet ones there are rarely the wall: a sump discharging a few feet from the house, or backfill that settled and turned the grade back toward it.
Clay, Zone 1 radon, and the alley behind the old grid
Fortville is two towns for our purposes. The grid around Main Street was platted in the 1800s: narrow lots, alleys behind them, houses close to the sidewalk. The subdivisions on the edges went in from the nineties onward, on wider lots and poured walls. Both sit on heavy clay that holds water against a foundation and moves with every freeze and thaw. Anything with a footing under it, a deck, a pergola, an addition, has to bear below the frost line, roughly thirty to thirty-six inches here.
Clay and downspouts
Clay does not drain, so roof water that lands beside the wall stays there. Short overhangs and downspouts ending at the foundation explain more wet basements here than cracked walls do. We walk the grade and the discharge points before we quote any framing.
Zone 1 radon
Hancock County is EPA Radon Zone 1, the highest of the three, where roughly one house in three tests at or above the 4 pCi/L action level. Test before you finish anything below grade: a dirt or rat-slab floor changes what a mitigation system has to sit on.
The alley behind the house
Downtown lots run long and narrow, with the garage off the alley and a side yard barely wider than a wheelbarrow. That sets where a container goes, how material reaches the back of the house, and how long demolition takes. It belongs in the schedule, not in the surprises.
Covenants only on the edges
The newer subdivisions carry covenants and an architectural committee that reviews anything changing an exterior, so a window, a door or a deck there answers to the committee as well as to the town. The old grid generally has neither, and the town counter is the only review.
We pull the permit. You do not chase the Town of Fortville.
Fortville issues residential permits through the town, with Hancock County offices in Greenfield behind it for county-level matters. The historic core has narrower lots and tighter setbacks than the newer edges of town, which occasionally matters for anything that changes a footprint.
All of it is built to the 2020 Indiana Residential Code — the 2018 International Residential Code plus the 2020 Indiana amendments, and we meet the inspector on site rather than leaving you to.
Fortville and the surrounding area
- Downtown Fortville
- Main Street
- Fortville Heights
- Willow Springs
- Sunny Meadows
We are based in Fishers, about 15 minutes from Fortville. That is a drive we make constantly and there is no travel charge — what distance changes is scheduling, not price. We block work in one area into continuous runs rather than splitting a crew across the metro in a day.
What Fortville homeowners ask us
Can my old cellar be finished?
It depends on headroom, and we measure it on the first visit. Ducts and beams set the ceiling, and below a certain height a finished basement is not code-compliant living space no matter what is spent on it. We would rather tell you that at the walkthrough than at the framing inspection.
Can you match the original trim?
Usually. Pre-war profiles are not stocked, but they can be milled to match, and in most Fortville houses enough original trim survives to copy. That decision belongs to you and it appears as its own line on the estimate.
Do you work in Fortville from Fishers?
Yes — it is about fifteen minutes, and it is one of the towns we work in most often outside Hamilton County. Same crew, same day rate, no travel charge.
Is Fortville in Hamilton County or Hancock County?
Hancock County, though the town sits close enough to the Hamilton line that most people guess wrong. It matters because it decides who reviews the work: inside town limits the Town of Fortville, and outside them the county, whose building offices are in Greenfield rather than Noblesville. A 46040 mailing address does not settle it by itself, so we confirm the jurisdiction from the address before we quote a permit line.
Can you put an egress window in an old Fortville basement?
Sometimes, and it is never the routine cut it is in a poured wall. Hand-laid stone or brick has to be opened and supported rather than sawn, and the well needs somewhere to drain in soil that holds water. What helps in these shallow cellars is that the floor sits high, so there is less wall below grade to remove. We look at the wall, the grade and the side-yard access, then answer with a reason.
Do the plaster walls in an old Fortville house have to come out?
Not usually. Plaster over lath is harder than drywall and quieter, and it is worth keeping wherever the keys behind the lath are still holding. We cut out the loose areas, patch back and skim. It comes out where it has to: shower walls, anything with rot behind it, and any wall being opened for plumbing or wiring. Wet areas get cement or foam board and a membrane regardless of what was there before.
Can I add a second bathroom to a small older house in Fortville?
Often, and the existing stack decides where it goes. Stacking the new bath near the original drain, under the stair or in a bedroom corner upstairs, keeps the pipe run short. Venting gets looked at, not just draining, because older houses were often vented in ways that no longer pass. Then it is arithmetic: a toilet needs fifteen inches from its centerline to anything either side and twenty-one inches clear in front.
Where does the dumpster go on a narrow downtown lot?
Usually the alley or the driveway apron, and we settle it before the first day rather than on it. If it has to sit in the alley we ask the town first, because that is not our pavement to block. Some of these lots take no container at all; then debris goes out by trailer on a schedule. Either way the site gets swept at the end of every day, alley included.
Four steps, from the first call to the last walkthrough in Fortville
Call or send the form
Tell us the room and roughly what you want done. We answer our own phone.
Walkthrough & estimate
We measure on site and send a detailed, transparent estimate — materials and labor itemized.
Build
Our own crew, code-compliant work, the site swept at the end of every day.
Final walkthrough
We go through the finished room with you and clear the punch list before we invoice.
What Fortville homeowners are actually choosing between
The person who quotes it runs it
The same crew that walked your house builds the job. You are not handed to a project manager who was not there.
Seven trades in-house
Tile, carpentry, flooring, trim, fireplaces, decks and finish work. One point of contact instead of a general contractor and five subs.
An itemized written estimate
Materials and labor, line by line, before anyone picks up a tool. You know the price at step two of four.
We answer our own phone
Call 317-427-8162 and you get the company, not a call centre. Working across Central Indiana since 2012.