Haralson County, Georgia
Handyman in Buchanan, Georgia
Buchanan was laid out in 1857 to be a county seat and nothing else, on the courthouse square plan, with the town limits drawn as a circle a half mile in every direction from the middle of the square. Everything built since has worked outward from that one point. The railroad came up the east side in about 1887, the Queen Anne courthouse went up in 1891 and 1892 and got its clock tower in 1897, and US 27 was eventually run around the outside, leaving the old route through town as Business 27. The other thing worth knowing before anyone opens a wall here is that city water service did not start until the 1950s. Anything older than that had its supply lines run in after the fact, cut through joists and studs wherever it was convenient at the time, and that is what turns up when a floor comes back up.
Repairs by part of town
Buchanan is not all one kind of house, and the repair work changes with it. See if you can find your own house in this.
- The courthouse square
- The middle of the 1857 plan, with the Queen Anne courthouse of 1891 and 1892 still standing in it, the clock tower added in 1897, and the building serving as the library now. The houses around it are the town's oldest and sit on the tightest lots. The Sanford-Wade house on the corner, built in 1909, is the type: ceilings around twelve feet, several fireplaces and mantels, tall windows. That height is the practical fact on this block. Plaster ceilings that high let go at the keys rather than cracking politely, crown and picture rail sit above where a normal ladder wants to stand, and a door tall enough for a twelve foot room binds along the whole strike edge when the frame moves instead of catching in one corner. Trim here gets matched rather than replaced, because none of these profiles are stocked anywhere.
- Depot Street and the east side by the tracks
- The Chattanooga, Rome and Columbus laid its track north to south through the east side of town in about 1887, and the line still runs, with a storage track and an industry spur off it. Depot Street and Warehouse Street are named for what used to stand there. Housing on this side is mixed in age and sits closer to commercial and industrial ground than anything on the square does, so the lots are shallower and there is less room to work. Getting a sixteen foot board to the back of a house here often means carrying it through the house, which is worth knowing before a siding or a soffit job gets quoted. And a house a couple of hundred feet off a working line takes a low, regular vibration that a house on the square does not, which is why filled cracks over door and window heads on this side keep coming back.
- The avenues off Highway 120
- East and West Head Avenue, Highland, Tinsley and the numbered avenues make up the built-out grid between the square and Highway 120. Most of Buchanan's mid-century housing sits in here, from the two decades this town actually grew, the forties into the fifties and again through the seventies. It is also the first housing in town plumbed to a city main from the start rather than having its supply reworked when the mains came through. These are small frame and brick houses on crawlspaces, with shallow eaves, wood or early aluminum windows, and one or two bathrooms that were in the original plan. Shallow eaves put rain onto the siding and the sills instead of clear of them, so the bottom two courses of siding and the sills on the weather side are where the money goes.
- Out past the lake and the church roads
- Highway 120 runs out past the VFW lake, and the roads at the edge of town run to the country churches: Macedonia Church Road, Welcome Hill Church Road, Wesley Camp Road. Houses out here sit on acreage instead of lots, up around twelve hundred feet, with hardwood over them and nothing between them and the weather. The work changes with the ground. Gutters fill twice in a season rather than once, and it is the fascia behind them that pays for it, not the gutter. Decks and porches added on later carry more shade and stay wet longer than the same deck in town would. And outbuildings count out here: a shop door that no longer closes square is the same repair as a house door, and it is the one that gets left three years longer.
What a Rome base means for Buchanan
What Buchanan homes tend to need
A few repairs come up far more often than the rest here. None of them are dramatic. All of them get worse and more expensive if left.
Every service, across Buchanan
- Handyman & Home Repair in Buchanan, the list you keep meaning to get to
- TV Mounting in Buchanan, mounted into something that holds
- Drywall Repair in Buchanan, patches that disappear
- Interior Painting in Buchanan, the prep is the job
- Deck Building & Deck Repair in Buchanan, the frame decides the job
- Siding & Structural Repairs in Buchanan, repaired where it's sound, replaced where it isn't
- Door Repair & Installation in Buchanan, doors that latch first time
- Gutter Cleaning & Repair in Buchanan, clear gutters protect the fascia behind them
- Pressure Washing in Buchanan, the right pressure for the surface
- LVP Flooring Installation in Buchanan, the floor is only as flat as what is under it
- Screened Porches in Buchanan, the part of the house you actually use
- Fence Installation & Repair in Buchanan, the posts are the fence
Repairs in Buchanan?
Send the list. You'll get a straight answer on price and timing.