Home Remodeling in Chadds Ford, PA
Careful remodeling for the stone houses, historic districts and custom homes of Chadds Ford.
Chadds Ford is where the Brandywine crosses Route 1, and its one ZIP code covers two townships in two counties: Chadds Ford Township in Delaware County, an affluent township about 25 miles from Philadelphia that holds the Brandywine Battlefield and the Brandywine River Museum, and Pennsbury Township in Chester County across the creek. The village core, the Chads Ford Inn of 1807 to 1810, the merchant mill of 1864 and a row of houses from the 1840s, has been a National Register historic district since 1971. The Twin Bridges Rural Historic District, listed in 2017, takes in the estates and landscape along Creek and Bullock roads in both townships. Around them the housing is 18th- and 19th-century stone houses, the Wyeth-country estates, and 1970s-to-2000s custom homes on wooded lots above the valley.
A Chadds Ford remodel is usually a careful one. The stone farmhouse has walls two feet thick, plaster, deep window jambs and additions from three centuries; the 1985 custom house has a kitchen and baths that were good for their year and a walk-out basement into the hillside. Dawson's serves both townships, about forty-five minutes from Middletown.
Two townships, two counties, two permit offices
Which office issues the permit depends on which side of the creek the house is on. Chadds Ford Township, in Delaware County, and Pennsbury Township, in Chester County with its building on Baltimore Pike, each administer Pennsylvania's construction code separately, with their own applications, fees and inspectors, and neither county issues building permits. Pennsbury Township also has a historical commission, and work on a house in either historic district or on a listed property is planned with the district's character and the township's review in mind before the permit is filed.
Working in a stone house
Kitchens in the old stone houses are in wings and are rebuilt in place with cabinetry fitted to uneven walls, plumbing kept to existing chases and floors matched to the wide boards elsewhere. Baths are 20th-century insertions that get proper subfloors and ventilation. Additions are the big decision: they go behind or beside the original, scaled below it, in stone or in a siding chosen to defer to it. Windows on a reviewed house are repaired or replaced with wood units matched to the divided-light pattern rather than stock vinyl.
Custom homes on the hills
The 1970s-to-2000s houses above the valley are large, with kitchens ready for an island and better light, primary baths ready for a tiled shower, and walk-out basements that finish into family rooms with daylight. Many sit in communities with homeowners associations that review exterior changes, and siding and window replacement at thirty years is done in materials that suit the wooded setting, fiber cement and casement units among them.
Dawson's serves Chadds Ford for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions, windows, siding, decks and carpentry.
Nearby, Dawson's also serves Pocopson, Centreville, Thornton and Concordville.
Chadds Ford is part of the Chester County, PA service area.
Ready to plan a remodel in Chadds Ford?
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.