C.B.E. Construction · White Heath, Illinois
Blair and Lorie Brown have run C.B.E. Construction out of White Heath since July 1998. Remodeling, roofing and siding, doors and windows, and new construction, with a free estimate on any of it.
A job walk
Most of what C.B.E. does on a home happens in roughly this order. Below is the same walk taken across three finished jobs around White Heath.
shell
A house gets judged from the road first. That means the roofline, the eave and gutter run, the porch columns sitting plumb, and brick or siding that meets the trim without a gap you can see from the lawn. On a build like this one the porch roof and the main roof have to agree with each other, which is decided at framing and cannot be fixed with caulk later.
rooms
Inside, the work is ceiling height, where the light lands, and how the trim carries around a room. A vaulted ceiling changes what the windows have to do, so the transom glass and the fireplace wall get set out together rather than one at a time. This is also where the electrical and plumbing rough in has to be finished and correct, because after the drywall it is expensive to be wrong.
kitchen
The kitchen is the room that gets used hardest and looked at longest, and it is the last thing to go right. Cabinets are set before a counter can be templated, the counter is templated before the backsplash can be run, and the whole sequence is why a kitchen is measured in weeks rather than days. Remodeling work here carries a five year labor guarantee.
Four trades, one crew
The same crew covers all four lines, which is why an addition does not need a separate roofer, a separate window company and a separate electrician scheduled around each other. Estimates are free on every one of them, and Blair writes them himself.
Five year labor guarantee
Cabinets, backsplashes, bathtubs and showers, sinks and flooring, in the two rooms a family actually lives in. Remodeling is the line C.B.E. has run longest and it is the one that carries the five year labor guarantee.
Remodeling
Licence #104-001-614
New and replacement roofs, shingles and metal, storm damage repair, and siding in vinyl, wood or metal. A roof almost never fails in the middle of the field, so the work is in the valleys, the step flashing and the eave.
Roofing and siding
One year labor guarantee
Interior and exterior door replacement and window replacement, vinyl or wooden. Water that shows up under a window usually got in above it, which is why the sill pan and the flashing lap matter more than the glass.
Doors and windows
One year labor guarantee
New homes, additions, sunrooms, screen porches and decks, with the electrical and plumbing handled in house. The hard part of an addition is the roofline tie in and matching siding that has already weathered twenty years.
New construction
The name
It is printed on the company logo, under the roofline, and it is the reason the business is named the way it is. Blair and Lorie Brown say that in every area of their lives they are committed to putting Christ before everything, and they run C.B.E. Construction as a way of sharing that.
In practice it shows up as who they hire. These are people who will be inside somebody’s house for three weeks at a time, so the company looks for integrity and honesty first and trains the rest.
Two jobs, by name
These two are on the company’s own books by the customer’s name. The photographs are of those jobs and nobody else’s.
It started as a low deck off the back of a yellow ranch house, flat, open and past its life. The deck came off, new posts went in, and the frame went up to carry a real roof rather than a shade sail. What it ended as is a screened porch with a gable, a railed stair down to the yard, and a ceiling the house did not have before. The sequence in these frames is the whole argument for hiring a builder rather than a deck crew: a screen porch is a foundation and a roof, and only then a floor.
White raised panel cabinets, dark granite, and a green glass tile backsplash that most people would not have had the nerve to pick. It is the right example of what a remodel is actually for: the room does not look like a showroom, it looks like that family’s kitchen. The island kept the cherry finish rather than being painted to match, which is a decision made at the drawing stage and not on the day the cabinets land.
Before you call
If what you need is not here, the office line is (217) 762-5432. There is a separate line for the Champaign and Urbana area at (217) 328-9848.
Estimates are free, on all four lines, and Blair writes them himself. If it is a kitchen, a roof, a set of windows or a house that does not exist yet, the first step is the same.
1263 E. 1900 North, White Heath, IL 61884|Licensed (#104-001-614), bonded and insured.