Window Treatment for Meridian-Kessler

Local Window Treatment Experience in Meridian-Kessler

A $462,500 median that describes almost no actual house

Homes here run from modest cottages and bungalows to multimillion dollar mansions, which is one of the widest internal spreads of any neighborhood in the city. The median is a statistical fact rather than a description of anything you'll walk into. For a window treatment project that spread is the whole story, because a 12 opening bungalow east of College and a 40 opening house on North Meridian are different trades with different products, different budgets and different lead times. We ask for the cross street and the style before we say anything about cost, and the answer usually places the house within a few openings.

There was no single production builder. Numerous individual developers and architects worked here across four decades, and architect Herbert L. Bass lived in the neighborhood himself. Lots are described in market terms as bigger than other Indianapolis areas. Market copy for this neighborhood repeatedly cites original hardwood floors, built ins and classic character, and that's a useful signal for our purposes: a house that kept its interior joinery almost always kept its window trim too. That's the condition where an inside mount looks best and measures hardest, because the trim is worth showing and the openings behind it have moved.

Predict the schedule from the cross street, then measure it anyway

South of 44th Street the Foursquares carry symmetrical openings with a wide front facing pair and a stair window sitting on the half landing. East of College Avenue the bungalows carry banded groupings under broad eaves and usually a front dormer. Throughout the neighborhood the Tudor Revival houses carry leaded multi light units, frequently inward opening, which removes the inside mount option at those openings entirely, and arched entrance surrounds. The Colonial and Classical Revival houses carry fanlights, sidelights and Palladian stair windows. Knowing which of those you have before the measure means the conversation starts in the right place.

Behind the trim, this is real wood jamb territory with substantial applied casing and weight pockets, not a wrapped drywall return. Depth is usually generous. The main stock is 70 to 116 years old, and the two surviving pioneer houses are 164 to 194 years old, so three point measure is the rule with no exceptions. On the light side, the neighborhood runs between Meridian Street, Kessler Boulevard, the former Monon corridor and 38th Street on the north side grid, so the long north south streets give east and west fronts. Mature canopy on tree lined streets sits between the sun and most of those front rooms.

What we specify most in Meridian-Kessler

Because there's no design review here, the product shortlist is genuinely wider than it is four miles south. Exterior shading is available to you without paperwork, and on a west facing front room that's the most effective thing you can do, because it stops solar energy before it reaches the glass rather than after. National ranges put exterior shades and awnings at roughly $1,000 to $6,000 installed, shutters $175 to $800 a window and custom interior shades $250 to $2,600. Those are national figures. What decides your number here is the count, and the count varies by 30 openings across this neighborhood.

Getting around Meridian-Kessler

The neighborhood sits between Meridian Street, Kessler Boulevard, the former Monon Railroad corridor and 38th Street. Butler-Tarkington lies immediately west across Meridian Street, Broad Ripple north across Kessler, and SoBro overlaps the northern half, which is why some addresses answer to two neighborhood names depending on who's asking. People here describe where they live by cross street and by which side of College Avenue they're on, and that turns out to be the same information we need to predict a window schedule. The Meridian-Kessler Home Tour has run annually since 1973 and remains the fastest way to see the inside of these houses.

An organized neighborhood with no regulatory power

The Meridian-Kessler Neighborhood Association was formed in 1965, explicitly emphasizing integration, and it has run a home tour since 1973 and a development corporation since 1986. It's a voluntary association rather than a mandatory homeowners association, and it holds no architectural control over your property. No recorded covenant restricting window coverings was identified here, and no body with authority to impose one was found. There's no IHPC district covering Meridian-Kessler, so there's no certificate of appropriateness requirement for exterior work either. That combination, an unusually well organized neighborhood with over 250 nationally listed houses and no design review of any kind, is what makes this the freest place in the city to specify an exterior awning or an exterior shade. If you hold a deed with restrictions on it, read those. Nothing public stands in the way.

Window Treatment Services in Meridian-Kessler

Every service Indianapolis Window Treatments offers across Indianapolis is available to Meridian-Kessler homeowners.

Towns We Serve Near Indianapolis

Meridian-Kessler is one of several Indianapolis communities we serve. We measure and install across Indianapolis, Marion County, and surrounding areas.

Meridian-Kessler Window Treatment FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Meridian-Kessler homeowners.