Bathroom Renovations in Central Ohio: What's Distinctive About Each Market

Central Ohio looks like one metro area on a map. From inside a bathroom renovation, it does not. A 1925 brick colonial in Upper Arlington has nothing in common with a 2008 custom build in Muirfield Village, and a Victorian in downtown Delaware has nothing in common with either. The renovations work very differently, the problems we find behind the walls are different, and the design choices that make sense are different.

This page is for homeowners trying to figure out what a bathroom renovation actually looks like in their specific area. We work across central Ohio's primary residential markets — Columbus and its inner-ring neighborhoods, Upper Arlington, Dublin, Hilliard, Westerville, the City of Delaware, and Powell. Each is its own conversation.

Upper Arlington

Upper Arlington's housing stock is dominated by two distinct eras. Old Arlington, south of Lane Avenue, was built mostly in the 1920s and 1930s — brick colonials, Tudors, English Revival, and a designated Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. River Ridge and other neighborhoods to the north are post-WWII ranches and mid-century homes ¹².

What this means for bathrooms.

The 1920s-30s homes were built with one bathroom per floor, often a small primary bath that has been touched lightly over decades — a 1970s vanity sitting on 1928 tile sitting on a subfloor that has been wet more than once. These projects almost always involve replacing the cast-iron supply lines, addressing tile-set substrate that no longer meets current waterproofing standards, and finding subfloor damage under the original tub. The footprint is usually small (40 to 60 square feet), which means design has to be careful about every inch.

The post-WWII ranches in River Ridge and similar neighborhoods have a different problem profile. Plumbing is often galvanized steel that has reached the end of its service life, electrical does not have GFCI protection where current code requires it, and the original ventilation is either inadequate or nonexistent. These bathrooms are usually 50 to 70 square feet and respond well to fairly significant reconfiguration — a tub-to-shower conversion, a relocated vanity, a properly vented exhaust fan run to the roof.

Upper Arlington also has approximately 440 century homes spread throughout the city ³. These deserve specialist attention. The bathrooms in them were typically added or modified during one or more retrofit eras (the 1920s, the 1960s, the 1990s), and the layers of work need to be understood before any demolition begins.

Dublin

Dublin's residential character splits into three distinct eras and styles.

Historic Dublin — the brick-lined streets around Bridge Street and the Scioto River crossing — has older homes, many of them century-plus, with the kind of charm and structural quirks that come with that age ⁴. Bathroom work here can resemble older Columbus or Delaware projects in complexity, with cast-iron drains, old supply lines, and the occasional discovery of a previous addition that was not built to current code.

Muirfield Village and Tartan Fields, developed beginning in the late 1960s under Jack Nicklaus's master plan and built out through the 1980s and 1990s, are luxury golf-course communities with mostly custom or semi-custom homes ⁵⁶. The bathrooms in these homes were generally well-built originally but are now 20 to 35 years old. The work here is typically not about repair — it's about updating finishes, replacing dated fixtures, and bringing in current design language. Stone surfaces, custom millwork, frameless glass, and free-standing tubs are common scopes. The bones are usually sound.

Newer Dublin developments — Bridge Park, Jerome Village, Tartan Ridge, and the corridor of newer construction along Avery and Hyland-Croy — are 2000s and 2010s builds with current systems, current code, and current ventilation. Renovations here are almost entirely aesthetic and functional refinement: the plumbing is fine, the electrical is fine, the goal is to take a bathroom that's serviceable and make it remarkable.

The pattern across Dublin: the older the neighborhood, the more the work resembles a traditional renovation. The newer the neighborhood, the more the work resembles a finish-and-fixture overhaul. Same city, very different projects.

Columbus (Inner-Ring Neighborhoods)

"Columbus" is too broad a term to be useful in a renovation context. The city contains German Village (mid-19th-century brick), Victorian Village (late-19th-century Italianate and Queen Anne), Clintonville (early-20th-century bungalows and craftsmen), the Near East Side (Victorian and early 20th-century), Bexley (1920s-30s brick colonials and Tudors), Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff (similar period, often slightly smaller homes), and a vast collection of mid-century and later neighborhoods further out.

The inner-ring historic neighborhoods are where bathroom renovations get genuinely interesting. The original homes typically had one bathroom — often an addition to a kitchen, water closet, or back porch — and the renovations we do are usually one of two things.

First, modernization of an existing bathroom that has been touched repeatedly over decades. Layers of vinyl flooring over linoleum over original tile. A 1970s vanity sitting on a 1940s rough-in. A shower stall added in the 1990s with shortcuts on waterproofing that are now causing damage. These projects involve real archaeology before the design conversation can even begin.

Second, the addition of a new bathroom to a home that did not originally have one in that location — a primary suite renovation that adds an ensuite bath, a second-floor bath added where a closet used to be, a powder room carved out of a hallway. These are more involved than they look. Adding a bathroom requires venting (every fixture needs a vent stack to the roof), drainage at the correct slope, supply lines routed cleanly, electrical for lighting and outlets with GFCI protection, ventilation to the exterior, and structural review of any wall openings.

Bexley, Grandview, and Marble Cliff sit in their own category. The housing stock is similar to Upper Arlington — 1920s-30s brick colonials and Tudors — and the project profile is similar. Older systems, careful design, and finishes that match the era's character.

Hilliard

Hilliard developed primarily in three waves: a historic core around the original railroad station (1869 forward, though most pre-1900 homes have been substantially modified), suburban expansion through the 1960s-80s, and the major growth phase from the 1990s to present.

The historic core of Hilliard has older homes that resemble inner-ring Columbus work — older systems, older finishes, occasional surprises behind the walls. The bulk of Hilliard's housing, however, is mid-to-late-20th-century suburban construction: ranches, split-levels, and traditional two-story homes built when ventilation, plumbing, and electrical were closer to current code than they are in pre-war housing but still often need updates.

Newer Hilliard subdivisions are similar to newer Dublin construction. Systems are current, code is current, and the renovation conversation is mostly about design, finishes, and turning a good bathroom into a better one.

A specific note on Hilliard: addresses near the city limits sometimes fall under Norwich Township or Franklin County rather than Hilliard itself, which can affect both permitting and inspection paths. We verify parcel jurisdiction before any project begins.

Westerville

Westerville has one of the more interesting residential mixes in central Ohio. Uptown Westerville and the surrounding older neighborhoods have homes dating back to the 19th century, including the historic district that runs through Old Westerville. Mid-20th-century suburban neighborhoods occupy the middle ring. Newer developments — including golf-course communities — fill the outer areas.

The Old Westerville Special Overlay District has additional design considerations for any exterior work, including any exterior alterations associated with a bathroom that touches an outside wall (new vent terminations, window changes, exterior plumbing penetrations). Interior bathroom work generally is not affected, but we coordinate any exterior touchpoints carefully.

Westerville's housing east of I-71 extends into Delaware County, but city-administered properties remain under Westerville's permitting authority regardless of county. The age and condition of the housing in those areas tracks more closely to other newer Delaware County developments — current systems, current code, design-driven renovations.

The City of Delaware

Delaware is one of central Ohio's most architecturally distinct cities. The Historic Northwest Neighborhood contains some of the oldest and best-preserved homes in the region — Federal, Greek Revival, English Gothic, Second Empire, Italianate, American Gothic, and early-20th-century styles, many of them well over 150 years old ⁷⁸. Downtown Delaware's commercial buildings date to similar periods.

These homes deserve specialist treatment. The plumbing is often original or near-original cast iron, the electrical predates modern code by generations, the ventilation was never designed for the way modern bathrooms are used, and the structural framing — balloon framing in many homes — handles renovations very differently than modern platform framing.

Bathroom renovations in historic Delaware homes are not "remodels." They are partial reconstructions that have to be planned with the home's age and integrity in mind. Original tile, original fixtures, and original millwork are often worth preserving or replicating rather than replacing. We approach this work with the patience it requires.

Outside the historic neighborhoods, Delaware has mid-century neighborhoods near Mingo Park with Cape Cods and ranches, and newer developments like Springer Woods and Trails End with contemporary construction ⁸⁹. The work in newer Delaware homes resembles newer suburban work elsewhere in central Ohio — design-driven, current systems, focused on functional and aesthetic upgrades rather than systems replacement.

Delaware's growth has been substantial. Delaware County has been one of the fastest-growing counties in Ohio for years, and the housing stock is correspondingly mixed ⁷. The renovation conversation in Delaware depends heavily on the neighborhood and the home's age.

Powell

Powell is largely a post-1980s city by population. The original village was small (around 400 residents through the late 1980s) before development accelerated, and most of Powell's housing stock is from the last 30 years ¹⁰¹¹.

This means most Powell bathroom renovations are not about systems repair. The plumbing is modern, the electrical is modern, the ventilation is generally adequate. The conversation is about design, finishes, and turning bathrooms that were good when the home was built into bathrooms that match the homeowner's current standards.

Powell's neighborhoods — Loch Lomond, Wedgewood, Deep Run, Scioto Reserve, The Retreat, The Chase, Golf Village, Canterbury Estates, Ashmoore, and others — are largely upscale single-family communities, many golf-course-adjacent ¹²¹³. The bathrooms in these homes are typically 100 to 200+ square feet, often with separate tub-and-shower arrangements, double vanities, and the layouts to support meaningful renovation without structural work.

The work we do most often in Powell: replacing 1990s-2000s primary bathrooms with current luxury finishes — stone surfaces, frameless glass, freestanding tubs, custom millwork, heated floors. The bones are sound; the goal is to bring the room up to the level of the rest of the house.

Liberty Township, surrounding Powell, has a mix of newer subdivisions and rural-residential properties with larger lots. The housing pattern resembles Powell itself in the developed areas. Permitting jurisdiction varies between Powell, Delaware County, and the township depending on the exact parcel, which we verify at the start of every project ¹⁴.

What This Means for You

Two homes in central Ohio at the same price point and same square footage can be very different renovation projects. The neighborhood, the age, the original construction quality, and the layers of prior work all matter. A bathroom renovation in Old Arlington is not the same project as a bathroom renovation in Muirfield Village, and a renovation in Historic Delaware is not the same as one in Trails End — even when the homeowner is asking for the same finishes.

This is why local experience matters specifically, not generally. A contractor who has worked in your neighborhood — not just your city — has seen the same problems before. They know what to expect behind the walls. They know which design choices read correctly in homes of that era. They know which trades to bring in for the specific work your home requires.

If your project is in any of the areas above, we have done work in homes like yours. We would be glad to talk about what that means for what you have in mind.

Housing stock generalizations describe typical conditions. Individual homes vary, and every renovation begins with a careful assessment of the specific property before any design or pricing conversation.