Dallas, Dallas County
Home Renovation and Remodeling in Dallas, TX
We are a family-owned crew updating the early-1900s homes of Oak Cliff, Lakewood, and the Swiss Avenue Historic District, with licensed pros on every trade a Dallas remodel touches.
Local conditions
Remodeling an Older Dallas Home
- Serving
- Dallas + nearby Irving, Coppell, Carrollton
- Trades
- HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical
- Family-owned
- Based in Flower Mound
- Service
- Same-day & emergency
Dallas is a core city, not a master-planned suburb, and that shapes every remodel here. Neighborhoods like Oak Cliff and East Dallas anchor a housing stock that predates the region's postwar growth, so the homes carry the quirks of their decade: plaster-and-lath walls instead of drywall, cloth-wrapped or aging wiring behind that plaster, cast-iron drain lines, and room layouts drawn for how families lived a century ago. Updating one of these homes is less about cosmetics and more about bringing the systems inside the walls up to how you actually live, without erasing the character that made you buy in Dallas in the first place.
The Swiss Avenue Historic District in Old East Dallas was the city's first designated historic district, and the majority of its roughly 200 homes went up in the 1910s and 1920s. That designation means exterior changes there answer to design review before a permit issues, and the same sensitivity carries into Lakewood's older streets and the bungalow blocks of North Oak Cliff around the Bishop Arts District. We plan those remodels so the street-facing character stays intact while the kitchen, baths, and mechanical systems behind it get fully modernized.
Permits in Dallas run through the City of Dallas Planning & Development Department, and water and sewer service comes from Dallas Water Utilities. On an older home that matters, because reworking a kitchen or a bath usually means touching supply and drain lines that are decades past their design life. We pull the permits, schedule the inspections, and coordinate the utility connections as part of the job rather than leaving that paperwork on you.
Homes in Dallas
The Dallas Housing Eras We Remodel
The heart of our Dallas work is the pre-war and early-20th-century home. In the Swiss Avenue Historic District, along Lakewood's tree-lined streets, and across the bungalows of Oak Cliff, we open up compartmentalized floor plans, replace original plaster where it has failed, and swap tired galvanized and cast-iron plumbing for modern lines, all while keeping the trim profiles, arched openings, and hardwood that give these homes their value. Deep Ellum's older residential and converted stock brings the same challenges in a denser setting.
These houses were built before central air, before modern electrical loads, and before the open kitchen. A real remodel here means running new HVAC through a structure that never had ductwork, upsizing electrical service for today's appliances, and reframing openings so a 1920s kitchen can become the room the family lives in. Because the plaster, the wiring, and the layout problems all sit inside the same walls, they have to be solved together, in one sequence, not by trades taking turns.
Dallas is not only its historic core. Uptown, parts of Preston Hollow, and Lake Highlands hold newer infill and rebuilt homes where the work is closer to a finish-level update than a full systems overhaul. We scope those honestly: if a home already has sound wiring and modern plumbing, we tell you so and put the budget into the kitchen, baths, flooring, and finishes rather than tearing into walls that do not need it.
What we do
Renovation services in Dallas.
Remodeling in Dallas runs on two calendars, and only one of them is ours. In the overlay neighborhoods, anything you change on the outside of the house waits on design review. The kitchen, the baths, and the tired lines behind the plaster wait on nothing but a permit and a start date. So before anyone draws a plan, we settle which of those two calendars each part of your project runs on, put the street-facing work into the review queue first, and spend those waiting weeks with the crew working inside the house instead of sitting idle.
Where we work
Neighborhoods and areas we serve near Dallas
An old Dallas house hands you decisions nobody planned for. The plaster comes off, something behind it is not what anyone assumed, and the decision has to be made that day rather than at the next meeting. Our crew is at your address every working day the job runs, rather than dropping in between other work, so we make that call on the spot, with the wall open and the choices visible, instead of over the phone from a photograph.
Dallas neighborhoods
- Oak Cliff
- Bishop Arts District (North Oak Cliff)
- Deep Ellum
- Lakewood
- Preston Hollow
- Uptown
- Lake Highlands
- Swiss Avenue Historic District (Old East Dallas)
Also serving nearby
- Irving
- Coppell
- Carrollton
- Farmers Branch
- Addison
- University Park
Dallas permits and inspections
Remodel permits in Dallas are issued by the City of Dallas Planning & Development Department, and we handle the application and inspections for you. If your home sits in the Swiss Avenue Historic District, or in another of the city's historic or conservation overlays, exterior work goes through design review before a permit is granted. We build that review step into the schedule up front so it does not stall your project midway.
Free quote
Book a free renovation visit in Dallas.
Tell us about your project. A Lantern team member will reach out within 24 hours. Or call directly: (682) 337-0863
FAQ
Dallas renovation questions.
Keep exploring
This page covers renovation work in Dallas. For the bigger picture, see our renovation services across Dallas-Fort Worth, or browse every community Lantern covers.
Working out whether you need the work at all? These are free, they run in your browser, and none of them ask for your email.
- What makes a renovation quote hold instead of balloon? A quote holds when every line is a specified item rather than an allowance, the subcontractors are named, and a written change-order procedure requires your signature before extra work starts. Texas already entitles you to the paperwork that proves it: a disclosure statement before you sign, a subcontractor list before work begins, and a bills-paid affidavit at final payment.
- What not to do in a kitchen remodel The mistakes that hurt in a kitchen remodel are sequence mistakes, not taste mistakes. Do not order cabinets until the layout is final and the appliances are chosen, because cabinets are built to a drawing and the appliance sets the opening. Do not agree to move the sink or the range until someone has confirmed whether the drain runs in a wall or is cast in the slab. Do not schedule demolition until the long lead item has shipped and the permit is issued. And do not sign a scope that says "relocate plumbing" without a written procedure for what happens if the line is in the concrete.
- What actually happens in a bathroom remodel? A bathroom remodel runs in a fixed order: protection and demolition, then plumbing and electrical rough-in, then an inspection, then waterproofing, then tile, then finishes. Two of those stages carry the weight. Nothing may be covered until the rough-in inspection passes, so that approval sets the schedule for everything after it. Waterproofing is the layer nobody ever sees again, and the only one whose failure shows up years later as damage to the framing. The decisions that trip homeowners up are the ones due before the walls close, not the ones about finishes.
Let's Bring Your Dallas Home Up to Date!
Tell us about your Oak Cliff bungalow or your Lakewood kitchen and we will walk the home, scope the work, and give you a straight estimate.
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