Home Remodeling in Dover, DE
Kitchen, bath, basement and exterior work for the historic and postwar neighborhoods of Dover, Delaware.
Dover is the state capital and the largest town in Kent County, and its housing radiates out from the Green. The Dover Green Historic District is 79 contributing buildings that take in most of the 18th-century town. Around it, the Victorian Dover Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1979, is 482 buildings from the early 19th century to the early 20th in Colonial Revival, Queen Anne and Gothic Revival styles. The next ring is the neighborhoods of the postwar decades: Capitol Park, Rodney Village beside the 86 acres of Brecknock Park, Crossgates, and Kent Acres two miles south, a community of about 2,000 people. Beyond those are the 1980s-to-2000s subdivisions on the city's edges.
That makes Dover a city of ranchers, Cape Cods and small two-stories from the 1940s through the 1960s wrapped around a historic core, with newer houses outside. Dawson's serves the city and its edges from Middletown, about half an hour up Route 1.
City permits and the historic districts
Inside the city, building permits come from the City of Dover's Department of Planning and Inspections at City Hall on Loockerman Plaza, whose inspections division enforces the codes for permits and private property. The city publishes its own list of what needs a permit. Houses in the historic districts follow the city's historic district guidelines for exterior changes, so windows, siding, porches and additions there are planned with the guidelines before the permit. Dover addresses outside the city line go through Kent County's online permit system instead.
Ranchers and Cape Cods from the postwar years
A Capitol Park or Rodney Village house is one story or a story and a half, with a kitchen closed off from the living room, one full bath, and either a crawl space or a shallow basement. The kitchen wall almost never carries load, and opening it is the change that makes the house work. The Cape Cod's second floor, half finished under the roof, becomes a real bedroom and bath with insulation, dormers and a plumbing run stacked over the first-floor bath. On the flat lots, a rear addition for a family room or a primary suite is the most common way to gain space.
Victorian houses on the older streets
The 19th-century houses in the Victorian district have high ceilings, plaster, deep window jambs and kitchens in rear wings that have been rebuilt more than once. The work there is careful: cabinetry fitted to tall rooms, plumbing routed within existing chases, bathrooms rebuilt from the subfloor, and windows repaired or replaced with wood units that match the divided lights the street already has. Siding on the frame houses is usually a repair-and-paint job rather than a replacement, and additions go behind the house where the guidelines allow.
Dawson's serves Dover for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions, windows, siding, decks and carpentry.
Nearby, Dawson's also serves Camden-Wyoming, Little Creek, Cheswold and Leipsic.
Dover is part of the Kent County, DE service area.
Ready to plan a remodel in Dover?
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.