The boulevards are protected
The historic boulevard system carries its own review. On those streets, anything affecting the facade is settled with the city before the interior is designed.
Logan Square, Chicago
Remodeling in Logan Square, Chicago
Logan Square has the finest greystones on the North Side, lined along boulevards that are a landmark district in their own right. These are substantial houses, and they reward being renovated properly.
Licensed, Bonded & Insured
Neighborhood
Logan Square, Chicago
Typical housing
Boulevard greystones & brick two-flats
Permits issued by
Chicago Dept. of Buildings
Our office
N. Halsted St., Chicago
Logan Square, Chicago
Renovating Homes in Logan Square
Logan Square is built around the boulevard system — Logan, Kedzie and Humboldt — which is a Chicago landmark district and carries some of the best greystone and brick housing in the city. Off the boulevards the stock changes scale: two-flats and three-flats, frame cottages and courtyard buildings from roughly 1890 to 1920, much of it converted to condominium since the 1990s.
The greystones are large, generously planned and almost always altered. A house of this size has usually been a two-flat, then apartments, then perhaps a single home again, and each of those changes left something behind in the plan and in the services.
The interesting work here is undoing rather than adding. Finding the original plan inside the alterations, recovering the ceiling heights and the joinery, and getting the services to match the way the house is used now.
Your Building
Find your building, and you will find your project
Logan Square was laid out around a boulevard system, and the houses on those boulevards are larger than anything on the side streets. The address changes the project.
| Era and building type | What you find inside | What a whole-home project becomes |
|---|---|---|
| 1890–1915 — boulevard houses and large greystones | Generous floor plates, formal front rooms, elaborate stone and plaster detail, and a service end that is small for the scale of the house. | Rebuilding the service end while the principal rooms and their detail are conserved. |
| 1900–1925 — brick two-flats and three-flats | Long, narrow units stacked vertically, a shared waste stack, radiator heat, and kitchens at the rear by the porch. | Either a proper single-unit conversion or two good flats, decided before anything is opened. |
| 1910–1930 — workers cottages and smaller frame houses | A compact plan close to the street, often raised over a lower level that was lived in. | Opening the main floor and dealing honestly with the condition of the level below. |
| 2000–today — conversions and rebuilds | Newer structure and service inside an older shell, with results that vary a great deal. | Finish-led, once the earlier conversion has been assessed. |
Inside The Building
What you are actually working inside
Cut through a typical Logan Square two-flat and the six things that decide a whole-home project are visible at once. Red marks what is shared or structural.
Scroll the drawing sideways →
- 1
One stack, two or three units
Everything drains into the same vertical line. If the building is being brought back to one home, that line is the backbone of the whole plan.
- 2
The wall between kitchen and dining
In a masonry two-flat it carries load. Opening it is a beam and a permit rather than a morning with a hammer.
- 3
The service panel
Usually sized for flats rather than for one household with a modern kitchen. Consolidating the supply is part of any conversion.
- 4
The back porch
The working entrance of the building and the route every delivery takes. Its condition is checked before the programme is set.
- 5
The lower level
Frequently a garden unit. Whether it stays a separate home or joins the house above is the biggest single decision on the project.
- 6
Original joists and plaster
Joist direction decides where walls can move, and plaster decides how much making-good follows every service run.
In Logan Square
Room-by-Room in Logan Square
What the work actually involves here: the housing stock, who issues the permit, and what the budget turns on.
Kitchen Remodeling in Logan Square
A Logan Square greystone has the floor area a good kitchen needs. What it also has is a bearing wall down the middle and three previous owners who each moved something.
Read more →Bathroom Remodeling in Logan Square
A Logan Square greystone has the ceiling height and the floor depth that make a proper bathroom possible. What it has behind the plaster is a century of other people’s work.
Read more →
What We Do
Remodeling Services for Logan Square Homes
Most projects here combine more than one of these. Each links through to the full service page.
Kitchen Remodeling
Full kitchen remodels, from opening up a closed-off layout to cabinetry, countertops, tile and the plumbing and electrical work behind them.
View service →Bathroom Remodeling
Bathroom remodels that make small, older layouts work harder: waterproofing, tile, vanities, fixtures and shower or tub replacement.
View service →Custom Kitchen Cabinets
Cabinetry built and fitted to the room rather than the other way round, including scribing to walls that are rarely square.
View service →Walk-In Shower Installation
Replacing an unused tub or a dated enclosure with a level-access shower, properly waterproofed and tiled.
View service →On Site
What makes remodeling here different
These are the conditions that decide the sequence and the contingency on a whole-home job in Logan Square. We plan around them rather than discover them.
One stack serving stacked flats
Kitchens and bathrooms on every level share it. Doing the whole building in one programme means opening that wall once.
One home or two, decided first
A great many projects here turn on whether the garden unit stays separate. It changes the permit, the services and the budget, so it is decided before design begins.
Masonry walls carrying load
The dining room wall in these buildings is structural. The beam is sized and signed off before the number is agreed.
Supply built for flats
Separate meters and undersized service are normal here. Bringing the building back to one household means sorting the supply once, at the start.
A narrow lot and a back porch
Cabinetry and stone come through the rear. Its width and condition decide what arrives assembled.
Permits
Which permit does your project need?
The question every Logan Square homeowner asks first, answered before you commit to anything. Follow your own project across.
Scroll the chart sideways →
This is the route, not a ruling. Scope decides it, the city has the final say, and a boulevard property may carry a further review. We confirm all of it in writing before any money is committed.
Where It Goes
Where the money actually goes
No two Logan Square buildings price the same, so this is an order rather than a number: the lines that pull hardest on a whole-home budget here, largest first.
Cabinetry and built-in joinery
The largest line, and in a house with original detail it has to be drawn to sit beside what is already there.
Labour and project management
Trades and supervision across a building that is frequently more than one dwelling at the start.
Structural work and the conversion
Beams, stair work and anything required to turn flats back into one home. The decision that moves the budget most.
Services and supply
Consolidating meters, rerunning the stack and sizing the panel for one household rather than several.
Surfaces: stone, tile and flooring
Countertops, tile and refinishing original floors across a large floor plate.
Permits, boulevard review, protection and insurance
City permit, any facade review, and site protection. Small, and never worth cutting.
This is the order these lines typically fall in on a whole-home project in Logan Square, not a breakdown of your project. Your figures come from a site visit and a scope, and nowhere else.
Coverage
Where we work in Logan Square
Logan Square is not one place. These are the parts of it we are in most often.
Logan BoulevardKedzie BoulevardPalmer SquareThe Milwaukee Avenue corridorWest Logan Square
Planning a Renovation in Logan Square?
Tell us about the property and what you want to change. We will set up a consultation, walk the space, and come back with a scope, a schedule and a price.
FAQ
Logan Square Remodeling FAQs
What kinds of homes are in Logan Square?
Large greystone and brick houses along the Logan, Kedzie and Humboldt boulevards, and two- and three-flats, frame cottages and courtyard buildings on the streets off them, mostly built between 1890 and 1920. A great deal of it has been converted to condominium since the 1990s.
We are thinking about deconverting our two-flat. Where do we start?
With the decision itself, before any design. Deconversion is a different permit and a different budget from a remodel, and it changes the stair, the services and often the structure. The questions worth settling first are what the rental income is worth to you, how the stair should work as one home, and what the second kitchen becomes.
Can the plan be opened up in a greystone?
Usually, with proper engineering. These houses have masonry party walls and generally a bearing wall down the middle, so removing it needs a sized beam, posts down to a bearing point and an engineer’s letter with the permit. We arrange the engineering inside the scope so the cost is known before you sign.
Our house fronts the boulevard. Does the landmark district affect us?
Only on the outside. A kitchen or bathroom rebuilt inside the existing walls is unaffected. A new window, a rear addition or an exterior vent needs Commission review, and that should be started long before the build because it takes longer than the construction.
The house has clearly been altered several times. Is that a problem?
It is normal here and it is the main reason we survey properly before quoting. Expect plumbing and wiring from several eras, partitions added and removed, and a kitchen that has moved rooms. None of it is difficult once it is known; all of it is expensive when it is discovered in week two.