Home Remodeling in Brookside, DE
Remodeling for the 1950s slab houses of Brookside, from a second bathroom to a rear addition.
Brookside was planned as a whole community at once. A developer from Trenton, New Jersey, who had helped create Levittown laid it out east of Newark, with construction starting in 1951 and sample houses set along Kirkwood Highway where commuters would see them. The plan called for about 3,000 homes; a little over 1,300 were built, in phases. The community came with its own sewer system, police force, parkland, a swimming pool and a recreation center, run by Brookside Community, Inc. and a civic association, and by the 1970s New Castle County had taken over the sewer and the policing. The 1970 census recorded the place as Brookside Park.
The original houses were small, 1,000 to 1,200 square feet, built on a concrete slab with two or three bedrooms and one bathroom, and most of them are ranchers. That is a very particular house to remodel. Dawson's serves Brookside, about twenty miles north of Middletown, with that house in mind.
What a slab changes
A slab house has no basement and no crawl space, so the drain lines run under the concrete. Moving a kitchen sink across the room or adding a bathroom means saw-cutting the floor, trenching a new drain with the right slope and patching the concrete before the finish floor goes down. It is routine work, but it is settled before the layout is final, because every fixture that moves has a trench behind it. Wiring and ductwork changes are simpler, since they go up through the attic. Tile and floating floors suit a concrete base better than nailed hardwood, and a slab that has cracked or settled gets leveled before any new floor goes over it.
Gaining a second bath and more room
The single bathroom is what most Brookside owners want to change first. Where the lot allows, a rear addition takes a primary bedroom and a full bath together, built on its own footing and slab and set at the height of the original floor. Where it does not, a half bath can often be fitted where a closet backs onto the existing plumbing wall. The kitchen is compact and closed off, and opening it to the living room brings light into the middle of the house. In a house this size, every foot counts: a bedroom can give up a little space to a real closet or a laundry nook, and a hall linen closet can become part of a larger bath.
Permits and the exterior
Brookside carries a Newark mailing address but lies outside the city line, so building permits and inspections here go through New Castle County's Department of Land Use, not Newark's building department. Exterior work on a one-story slab ranch is modest in scale and quick to schedule: replacement windows fitted to the original openings, new siding over house wrap, and a deck or patio off the back door.
Ready to plan a remodel in Brookside?
Call Dom with the address and the project, or send the details through the form. The walkthrough is free and the estimate comes in writing.