Home remodelingin Lawrence Township, Indianapolis
Bathrooms, kitchens and basements in Lawrence Township. We are a 15-minute drive away in Fishers, we pull the permit through the Marion County Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, and the crew that walks your house is the crew that builds the job.
We have been opening walls in Marion County since 2012
Lawrence Township is the northeastern of Marion County's nine townships, the closest to our shop, and it runs from Castleton across to the Geist shoreline and Fort Harrison. Most of its housing went up between the 1960s and the 1990s.
- 1960s and 70s ranches and split-levels through Castleton and Oaklandon with the era's compartmented plan
- Later 1980s and 90s subdivisions where the work is finish-level rather than structural
- Geist shoreline properties with walkout lower levels that finish out better than any true basement
What each of them means in Lawrence Township
Bathroom remodeling in Lawrence Township
The hall bathroom in a Lawrence Township ranch has barely changed since it was built: a sixty-inch alcove tub on an outside wall, a window over it, one thirty-inch vanity, and a door that shuts the room off from the hall. In the earlier 1960s houses the wall tile is often mud-set over metal lath, a bed close to an inch thick, visible at a cut edge or the window return. That is slower, heavier demolition than it looks, so we identify it at the walkthrough rather than on day two. Houses from the mid-1970s through the 80s usually have a one-piece fiberglass tub and surround that went in while the framing was still open; it leaves in pieces, cut in place, because it will not come back through the door. The window over the tub is the decision that shapes the rest of the room. Keep it and the shower wall stays a wall with a hole in it; close it up and you get a full tiled surround and lose the daylight. Most were built with no exhaust fan, because a window that opens counts as the ventilation, then and now. We put a fan in anyway, since nobody opens a bathroom window in an Indiana January. In the 1990s subdivisions the job is a different one: the primary bath has a garden tub nobody has filled in years, and the question is what replaces it.
Kitchen remodeling in Lawrence Township
Lawrence Township kitchens split along one line, and the line is the roof. In the 1960s and 70s ranches and split-levels through Castleton and Oaklandon the ceiling is conventionally framed, and the wall between the kitchen and the living room is often carrying it, so opening that plan means a beam, posts, and a load path down to something solid, usually the basement steel beam or a new footing under the slab. In the 1980s and 90s subdivisions out toward Geist the roof is clear-span trusses and that same wall frequently carries nothing, which makes two identical-looking jobs two different numbers. We get into the attic and look before saying which one you have. Two more things we expect here. The older kitchens have a soffit boxed over the wall cabinets; often it is framing and air, but where a duct or a vent stack runs inside it the cabinet line stays where it is, and we open a corner of it to find out. And a 1960s kitchen typically has one small-appliance circuit where the current code wants two twenty-amp circuits and GFCI protection at the countertop, which is a line on the estimate rather than an upsell. In the split-levels, opening the kitchen to a sunken family room brings a guard with it wherever the floor drops more than thirty inches, and that decides what the half wall can be.
Basement finishing in Lawrence Township
Three different basements sit inside this one township. The 1960s and 70s ranches usually have a poured or block foundation, a steel beam on lally columns down the middle, and the main duct trunk hung under the joists, so we measure to the bottom of the trunk rather than to the joists, because that is the number that decides whether the plan stands or the ducts move. Marion County clay holds water against those walls, and block seeps at the mortar joints long before it cracks; plenty of these houses were built with no sump pit at all, so drainage gets priced before any framing does. The 1980s and 90s subdivisions are the straightforward case: poured walls, more height, and sometimes a bathroom rough-in already stubbed into the slab, which we look for before quoting a basement bath. Split-level lower levels are their own thing, half below grade and already framed, with window openings sometimes close enough to size that the egress cut is smaller than the owner expects. And on the Marion County side of Geist the lower level is often a walkout, at grade on the water side, with daylight and a real door, though the finished floor sits nearer the water table there, and where a house is still on septic rather than sanitary sewer the county health department has a say in a new bathroom before we do.
What the ground and the plat decide here
Lawrence Township sits on the same heavy clay as the rest of Marion County, and below grade that clay sets the terms. Above grade the constraint is not a historic one: none of IHPC's thirteen historic districts or five conservation areas fall in this township, and interior work sits outside that review in any case. What does bind, in the 1980s and 90s plats, is a recorded covenant. We keep no office out here. We drive in from Fishers.
Clay, frost and the water against the wall
Central Indiana frost depth runs roughly thirty to thirty-six inches, and the clay above it holds water against a foundation wall instead of draining away. Freeze-thaw moves things a little each winter. Downspout discharge, grade at the wall and where a sump line ends get read early, not after drywall.
Radon Zone 1, county-wide
Marion County is EPA Radon Zone 1, the highest of the three, where roughly one home in three tests at or above the 4 pCi/L action level. It matters most when a basement stops being storage and becomes a bedroom or an office someone sits in daily.
The Geist shoreline is its own site
Lots that fall toward the water give you a walkout lower level and daylight without digging for them. They also put the finished floor nearer the water table, and on the low ground the flood map decides what can go below grade, not us. We check it early.
Covenants, not commissions
The 1980s and 90s plats here carry recorded covenants, and several have an architectural review committee. It rarely reaches an interior remodel. A new egress window well or a changed exterior door is an elevation change, and that one is theirs to approve rather than the county's.
We pull the permit. You do not chase the Marion County Department of Business and Neighborhood Services.
Permits inside Marion County go through the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services at 200 E Washington Street, and residential review typically runs ten to fifteen business days — longer than any of the Hamilton County offices. DBNS also requires the applicant to be either a licensed Marion County contractor or the property owner.
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.
Lawrence Township and around it
- Castleton
- Oaklandon
- Fort Benjamin Harrison
- Geist
- Devonshire
- Sargent Road
We are based in Fishers, about 15 minutes from Lawrence Township. 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 Lawrence Township homeowners ask us
Is Lawrence Township the same as the City of Lawrence?
No, and it matters for permits. The township is a Marion County subdivision; the City of Lawrence is an excluded city inside it with its own government. An address can be in the township but outside the city. We confirm which before quoting.
This is the closest part of Indianapolis to you?
It is. Parts of Lawrence Township are twelve to fifteen minutes from the shop — closer than several Hamilton County towns we serve. The permitting office is the only meaningful difference.
What is the most common project here?
Basement and lower-level finishing, followed by opening up a 1970s kitchen. The housing stock is old enough to want changing and new enough that little goes wrong behind the wall.
Our house was built in 1970 — should I be worried about aluminum wiring?
Worth checking. Single-strand aluminum branch wiring was common in houses built roughly between 1965 and 1973, which overlaps a good deal of what was going up around Castleton and Oaklandon then. It is not an emergency. It does change how a kitchen or bathroom circuit gets extended, because the connections have to be made with devices and connectors rated for aluminum. We look in the panel at the walkthrough and tell you what is there.
Can you take out the wall between our kitchen and the family room?
Usually. What it costs turns on whether that wall is holding the roof up. In the 1960s and 70s ranches here it often is, so the answer includes a beam, posts and a load path carried down to the foundation. In the later subdivisions the roof is clear-span trusses and the same wall frequently carries nothing at all. We get into the attic and look before quoting either version.
We're on the water at Geist. Is a walkout lower level easier to finish than a basement?
Generally yes. You get daylight, a door at grade, and a simpler route for materials. That door normally serves as the lower level's emergency escape opening, though a bedroom built down there still needs one of its own. The trade is that the floor sits nearer the water table on the low lots, so we read the flood map and watch how the grade drains before quoting.
Do we need to test for radon before we finish the basement?
We would test before anything gets framed. A short-term test runs a few days and can happen while the plan is still on paper. Marion County is in the highest EPA radon zone, and an unfinished basement nobody sits in is a different exposure from a finished one with a bedroom in it. If the number comes back high, the mitigation route is much easier to run while the walls are still open.
Our subdivision has an architectural committee. Does that affect the remodel?
Only where the outside of the house changes. Kitchens, bathrooms and finished basements are interior work and generally sit outside it. A new egress window well, a widened basement door or anything that alters a visible elevation is a different matter. Those covenants are recorded against the plat and enforced by the association, not by the county, so committee approval and the county permit are two separate errands.
Four steps, from the first call to the last walkthrough in Lawrence Township
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 Lawrence Township 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.