Wabash Boulevard Split-Level Remodel — Winston-Salem, NC
Wabash Boulevard Split-Level Complete Remodel — Winston-Salem, NC.
A split-level transformed — inside and out
Split-levels are one of the hardest home types to renovate well. The staggered floor plan forces trade-offs most contractors won’t navigate — they either do cosmetic-only work and leave the layout clumsy, or they price a full reconfiguration out of reach. The Wabash Boulevard project took the harder path: a genuine complete remodel that reworked flow, added heated square footage, refreshed every interior surface, and updated the exterior.
Scope
Interior remodel & flooring: Brand-new flooring throughout the entire house. Complete repaint. All-new finishes tying the split-level’s separate levels into a cohesive design.
New kitchen: Full kitchen remodel — cabinets, counters, appliances, layout refresh.
Added heated square footage: Converted sunroom/dining area to fully conditioned space — not a seasonal porch, a real room usable year-round. Added a new bedroom with code-compliant egress window (the safety detail many additions skip).
Bathroom updates: New vanities and mirrors throughout. Clean-lined, contemporary feel that reads as intentional rather than dated-with-a-coat-of-paint.
Outdoor living: Stained deck. Screened porch. Usable outdoor space that works in North Carolina’s humid summers.
Exterior refresh: Painted brick and siding. A dated exterior palette replaced with a cohesive color story — sometimes the highest-ROI exterior move a split-level can make.
Why it worked
A remodel of this scale — interior + addition + exterior + outdoor simultaneously — only works if one team is coordinating every trade. Salem Builders ran framing, mechanicals, finishes, flooring, painting, and outdoor work under one fixed-price contract, one project manager, and one timeline. The homeowner signed one number and got every scope item delivered without contractor handoff friction.
Fixed-price contract. On-time guarantee. 2-year workmanship warranty. Same guarantees we apply to every project — from a $15k bathroom to this kind of whole-home transformation.
Why split-levels are the hardest remodels
Split-levels — the mid-century floor plan with a half-flight of stairs between every room — are notoriously hard to renovate well because the levels themselves don’t want to become an open concept. The staggered heights make knocking walls down a structural headache, the HVAC and electrical are almost always routed through the stair towers, and any reconfiguration triggers downstream questions that contractors without the right experience either ignore or overcharge for.
The Wabash Boulevard project worked because we planned the level-to-level flow first, before touching a single finish. New flooring was chosen to read as one continuous material across all three levels — tying the levels visually instead of emphasizing their separation. The kitchen was reconfigured to sit on the middle level as the natural gathering point, with the added heated square footage (former sunroom/dining area, now a real year-round room) feeding off it. The new egress-code bedroom is a safety upgrade that also unlocks real resale value — buyers’ agents will price a split-level differently when every bedroom below grade meets code.
Outdoor living that matches the remodel
The outdoor work on Wabash Boulevard was treated as an extension of the interior remodel rather than an afterthought. A new deck replaces the original weathered one, sized for real entertaining furniture. The screened porch is fully framed and screen-paneled with the Screen Eze system (the one that doesn’t sag or get knocked out by a lawn mower kicking up a rock). Both tie into the refreshed exterior paint palette, so the back of the house reads as intentionally designed — not a collection of projects done at different times by different people.
The outcome
Split-levels have a reputation for being hard to sell because most of them still look, feel, and function like 1965. A fully remodeled split-level like Wabash Boulevard sheds that reputation. New flooring throughout, a contemporary kitchen, modernized bathrooms, added conditioned square footage with a code-compliant egress bedroom, and outdoor living that works year-round — it’s the kind of whole-project reset that makes an old floor plan feel deliberately chosen, not inherited.
