Stairs & Trim in Westerville, OH

Westerville was named for the Westervelt family, Dutch settlers who arrived in 1818, and incorporated in August 1858 with a population of 275. Otterbein University grew out of the Blendon Young Men's Seminary of 1839 and was founded proper in 1847. An 1859 ordinance banned alcohol sales, and when the Anti-Saloon League moved its national headquarters here from Washington in 1909 the town became the center of the Prohibition movement. The 2020 census counted 39,190 residents across Franklin and Delaware counties.

Flooring-wise the town splits in two. The Uptown Westerville Historic District and the streets near Otterbein hold the nineteenth and early twentieth-century stock: plank subfloors, joists that have settled, floors that are out of level enough to matter, and original hardwood under carpet more often than people expect. Those houses reward a narrower plank and a lower sheen, and they need the deck assessed honestly before a rigid product goes anywhere near it.

The rest of Westerville is post-war and later suburb, and it has the metro-standard problem: plywood decks that have never been inspected since construction, and two or three generations of flooring stacked on top. When it all comes out the finished height changes, so casings, thresholds and door bottoms have to be worked into the job rather than discovered on the day.

Otterbein also means rental property. A student let and a family home are different specifications, and it is a disservice to quote the same thing for both — a floating laminate at a sensible abrasion class is often exactly right for one and exactly wrong for the other.

Stairs are the constant across both halves of town. Old Uptown staircases are steep and rarely square and need measuring tread by tread; suburban ones are more predictable but still take the heaviest wear in the house, concentrated on the nose of each step. Either way we price them from measurement rather than a rule of thumb.

We bring the samples to Westerville, measure while we are there, and price the whole project in one proposal. The in-home appointment is complimentary with no obligation.