Home Remodeling in Downingtown, PA
Kitchen, bath, basement and exterior work for Downingtown borough and the townships around it.
Downingtown began as Milltown, a cluster of mills at the edge of the frontier between Philadelphia and Lancaster: Thomas Moore put up a water corn mill in 1716 and Roger Hunt a gristmill in 1739. The borough grew with the railroad and after the Civil War, when John Johnson bought 18 acres in the southwest corner in 1871 and cut them into 102 building lots that became Johnsontown. The East Lancaster Avenue Historic District holds 121 contributing buildings from 1700 onward in Georgian, Federal and Victorian styles. When the mills closed, their sites went to housing; Main Street Village stands on the former Downingtown Manufacturing Company land. Around the borough, East Caln, Uwchlan, West Bradford and Caln townships took the Downingtown Area School District's growth, and East Caln has been one of the county's fastest-growing places since 2020.
The Downingtown house is a Victorian in the borough, a 1950s or 1960s rancher or split-level on the borough's edge, or a 1990s-to-2010s colonial or townhome in a township subdivision. Dawson's serves all of them, about an hour from Middletown.
Permits from the borough's zoning officer, or the township's
Inside the borough it is unlawful to erect, alter or demolish a building without a permit from the borough's zoning officer, and the borough's code enforcement office, which combines planning, zoning and building, requires a permit for interior renovations, changes to electrical, plumbing or HVAC, roof replacement, additions, porches and decks. The borough's zoning ordinance dates from 1989 and has its own housing standards for existing dwellings. Every township around the borough runs its own office under the same state construction code, so an East Caln or Uwchlan address files there, not with the borough.
Johnsontown and the Victorian borough
The 1870s-to-1920s houses in Johnsontown and along Lancaster Avenue are frame and brick with plaster, rear kitchen wings and bathrooms added later. The kitchen is rebuilt in the wing with cabinetry fitted to old walls, the bath rebuilt from the subfloor, the cellar assessed for moisture before it is finished. On the borough's 1950s and 1960s streets the ranchers and split-levels get their kitchens opened to the living room, their lower levels finished and their 1980s windows and siding replaced.
The township subdivisions
The colonials and townhomes of East Caln, Uwchlan and West Bradford from the 1990s onward are on their first real remodel: the island kitchen, the tiled shower in place of the platform tub, the poured basement finished with a bath. Their homeowners associations review exterior changes before the township permit, and siding and windows on the older of them are reaching replacement age.
Dawson's serves Downingtown for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions, windows, siding, decks and carpentry.
Nearby, Dawson's also serves Thorndale, Exton, West Chester and Coatesville.
Downingtown is part of the Chester County, PA service area.
Ready to plan a remodel in Downingtown?
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.