Remodeling in Lemont valley and bluff.

Downtown is a quarry town, and the walls remember it

The streets along the canal and the river are the old Lemont: cottages, brick houses, and limestone from the years when the quarries were the reason the town existed. Lots step with the hill. Basements, where they exist, are not the tall poured boxes of a 2005 subdivision. Kitchens are often a later insertion into a plan that had a separate pantry or a back room, and the walls are heavier than they look under the plaster.

That is why a kitchen project downtown starts with structure, not with a door style. We look for what is brick, what is a stud furred out over masonry, and what is actually free to move. If the sink wall is masonry and the drain is where it has to be, we rebuild the cabinets to that wall and spend the care on fit, light, and a pantry that does not stick into the only aisle. Opening the kitchen to the dining room is a conversation we will have, and we will decline it if the wall is earning its keep.

Baths and built-ins where the rooms are small

A bathroom in these houses is frequently one full bath and a tight lavatory. The win is a shower you can turn around in and a vanity that does not eliminate the towel hook. Tile wants to be quiet. A large-format slab that needs a perfectly flat wall may be the wrong material for plaster over limestone.

Built-ins are often the highest leverage project in a canal-era house. There is no walk-in closet and no garage storage pretending to be a mudroom. A shallow bookcase, a window seat over a radiator cover we can still access, or a cabinet fitted beside the chimney gives the room a place for the things that are currently on the floor. The piece has to be shallow. A deep bookcase in a twelve-foot-wide parlor just deletes the parlor.

The bluffs are a different Lemont

Up out of the valley, on the wooded streets toward Cog Hill and along the ridges, the houses are later and larger. Some are 1970s and 1980s homes with ordinary stud walls. Others are 1990s and 2000s houses with real basements and kitchens that were generous for their year and are tired now. Here a full kitchen replacement, a primary bath, or a finished lower level is a normal scope, closer to what we draw in south Naperville than to what we draw on Canal Street.

We still do not treat “Lemont” as one floor plan. When you call, say whether you are in the valley or on the hill. It changes the first questions we ask.

The village, the drive, and the permit

The Village of Lemont reviews permits for houses in town. Structural work and new plumbing fixtures are what they generally expect to see drawn. A masonry opening needs a clearer sketch than a stud wall, because nobody should be guessing at brick. We ask the village what the current checklist includes and we build the schedule around that answer. Review times and fees are theirs. This page will not invent them.

Lemont is farther from our Montgomery base than Lisle or Oswego. We make the drive for a room that justifies it. If your project is smaller than that, we would rather tell you on the phone.

Lemont questions