Home Remodeling in Swarthmore, PA
Remodeling for the Victorian, revival and postwar houses of Swarthmore.
Swarthmore grew around a college and a train. Swarthmore College was founded in 1864, and when the rail line to Philadelphia was improved in the 1880s the farmland around it became a commuter suburb. The West Hill Land Development Company built the first houses in the 1880s on Elm Avenue and North Chester Road; by 1886 other companies were building south of the station; and in 1891 the college sold the College Tract between the railroad, Chester Road and Princeton and Harvard avenues, which is why so many streets in the south half carry the names of eastern colleges. The borough was set off from Springfield Township on March 6, 1893. In the 1920s the Riverview Estates houses on Ogden Avenue, Riverview Road and Thayer Road went up in Pennsylvania farmhouse, Tudor Revival and French styles, and in the 1950s Colonial Revival houses filled The Hills on Forest, Dogwood and Woodbrook lanes.
About a third of the borough is campus, so the rest is closely built with houses from those waves, most of them from the Victorian years through the 1920s. Dawson's serves Swarthmore from Middletown, about forty-five minutes away.
One building code official for the borough
Swarthmore Borough issues its own permits through its Building Code Official at Borough Hall on Park Avenue. A permit is required whenever structural, plumbing, heating or electrical work is built, enlarged, altered, repaired or remodeled, and for fences, sheds, garages and solar panels. Two rules shape remodeling here. Ordinary repairs, such as repainting or replacing kitchen cabinets, need no permit, so a cosmetic kitchen refresh can move quickly. And a separate stormwater management permit applies once impervious cover goes past 499 square feet, a line that a family room addition plus a patio or a wider driveway can cross.
Houses from three building waves
The 1880s West Hill houses are Stick Style and Victorian frame, with porches, tall windows and kitchens that have been redone several times. Rebuilding one of those kitchens means leveling floors, fitting cabinets to old walls and running new circuits through balloon framing. The 1920s Riverview houses were designed by architects, several of them in stone, with steep roofs and divided-light windows that belong to the design, so window work there is about matching, not swapping in a stock unit. Porches and trim on both of the older waves are rebuilt in kind, with the original profiles copied rather than simplified.
The 1950s Colonial Revivals in The Hills are the simplest to open up: a kitchen that can lose the wall to the dining room, a hall bath ready for a full rebuild, and a basement that finishes into a family room once moisture is handled. On houses of every era, additions go to the rear and are scaled to the house in front of them.
Dawson's serves Swarthmore for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions, windows, siding, decks and carpentry.
Nearby, Dawson's also serves Wallingford, Media, Brookhaven and Aston.
Swarthmore is part of the Delaware County, PA service area.
Ready to plan a remodel in Swarthmore?
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.