Handyman services in Apex, NC

A town with two kinds of houses

Apex is unusual among the Wake County towns in that its housing stock is genuinely split, and the difference decides what kind of work a house needs.

The older half sits in and around downtown, on the grid of streets near Salem Street. Those houses are pre-war and interwar — real wood trim, plaster walls in the oldest of them, wood double-hung sash windows, brick piers and crawlspaces, and floor plans that were laid out before open plan existed. They were built well and they need the kind of attention that suits old houses: repair rather than replacement, matching what is there rather than swapping in the modern equivalent.

The other half is everything built since about 1998, spreading west and south from the Apex Peakway out toward Beaver Creek, Olive Chapel Road and Green Level. Scotts Mill, Shepherd’s Vineyard, Haddon Hall, Bella Casa, Sweetwater, Riley’s Pond, The Villages of Apex, Abbington and the newer developments beyond them are all variations on the same theme: two stories, an attached garage, vinyl or fiber cement cladding, and a finish package chosen by a builder rather than an owner.

Both types generate steady work. They just generate completely different work.

What the newer subdivisions call about

The pattern in a fifteen-to-twenty-five-year-old Apex house is upgrading out of builder grade. The house was finished to a price, and the parts that were finished cheapest are the parts that get replaced first: the flush-mount ceiling fixtures, the builder’s bathroom mirrors and vanity lights, the wire shelving in every closet, the flat builder paint on every wall, and the fans that have developed a wobble.

Storage is the second theme, and it is a bigger one here than in most places. These houses have generous square footage and unhelpfully arranged storage. Wire shelving gets swapped for proper closet towers, garages get wall track and overhead racks, and the space under the stairs gets turned into something usable. It is inexpensive work with a visible result, which is why it comes up so often.

The third theme is timing. Apex has been one of the faster-growing towns in the state for two decades, and a large share of buyers here are buying their first house. First-time owners tend to arrive with a list — a television to mount, furniture arriving in boxes, a nursery to sort out, a room to repaint — and book several small jobs at once rather than one large one.

By the time these houses reach twenty years, the exterior starts asking for attention as well. Trim at the garage jambs, window sills on the elevation that takes the weather, and deck boards on a deck built with the house all reach the end of their first life at roughly the same time.

What the older streets call about

Downtown is a different conversation. Original trim is worth keeping and worth repairing properly — a rotted section of casing on a 1930s house gets scarfed in and profiled to match, not replaced with a stock molding that is nearly right. Sash windows that have been painted shut get freed and re-roped rather than replaced. Doors that have not closed properly since the Reagan administration get their hinges and strikes adjusted instead of being planed.

Two practical points come with these houses. Walls may be plaster over lath, which does not take a drywall patch and needs a different repair. And anything built before 1978 may have lead paint under the newer layers, which means surfaces that are being sanded or scraped need certified lead-safe work practices — a real requirement, not a formality.

Apex also has a designated historic area near the center of town, and where local guidelines apply they generally concern what is visible from the street: exterior materials, window replacement, porch changes. Repairs that keep the existing appearance are usually straightforward. Changes that alter it are worth a call to the town before spending money.

Coverage around Apex

Work in Apex is booked alongside the neighboring communities — Holly Springs immediately south, New Hill and Friendship to the west, the Green Level area on the Apex and Cary boundary, and Fuquay-Varina further out. Because it is the center of the coverage area, an Apex job usually has the most scheduling flexibility of anywhere on this site.

Nearby coverage also includes Cary to the east, Morrisville to the north-east, and Durham beyond it.