CR Custom Exteriors – Milliken, CO

Milliken sits in the low bottomland where the Big Thompson and South Platte come together, at about 4,751 feet, one of the lowest spots on the northern Front Range and noticeably lower than Firestone or Frederick up the ridge. The Big Thompson runs along the north edge of town rather than through the middle, but that valley floor is exactly the kind of flat, open ground that lets summer thunderstorms build and drop hail with nothing to slow them between here and the foothills. The town's housing splits cleanly: the original sugar-beet and potato-deck-era homes near Broad Street date to the 1920s and 1930s and often hide layered-over roofs and tired original wood, while the newer subdivisions that pushed Milliken past 9,000 people, places like Settlers Village, Centennial Farms, Frank Farm, and Sunfield, are now far enough along that the builder-grade shingles, caulk, and gutters that went on in one pass are wearing out in one pass too. High-plains UV is hard on the south- and west-facing walls of those newer ranches, so we walk each Milliken home and quote it for what it actually is rather than its zip code.