CLAYTON, Ind. — From the outside, the Abernathys’ new home is beautiful. It is a bright white, two-story house in a quiet, wooded area. But as the saying goes, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

There, according to the family as well as experts, is where you will find serious construction and safety concerns.

Nicole Abernathy and her husband bought their Hendricks County property with plans to gut the original ranch house and add a second floor.

"We were only leaving the brick on the outside and starting basically from the crawl space up," Abernathy said.

They hired Bestside Construction in 2022 because they knew one of the employees.

The cost on their contract: $241,000.

"We obviously shopped it around like you're supposed to, and we just kind of felt like that personal element,

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