Doylestown, Bucks County
Drywall texture matching & removal in Doylestown, PA.
Doylestown's borough is younger than its streets suggest: its median house dates from 1962. Textured walls and ceilings can turn up on both sides of the borough line, from different generations.
Drywall texture matching & removal for Doylestown homes
Fieldstone, plastered brick and Victorian frame are what most people picture here, yet the median house in the borough was built in 1962, and about half its homes date from 1940 to 1979. Those mid-century houses, not the old stone ones, are where drywall texture is likely inside the borough line. In the older third, built before 1940, the walls are plaster, and any texture on them came later.
The township next door belongs almost wholly to the drywall era: only about three homes in a hundred there predate 1940, and four in five went up between 1960 and 1999. Its two biggest decades, the 1970s and the 1990s, sit on either side of the mid-1980s, the line that decides whether old texture and joint compound are tested before they are disturbed.
Doylestown
Township houses of the 1970s and the 1990s
The township's 1970s houses, more than a quarter of the total, are the ones to test first. Their original texture and compound went on before asbestos had fully left those products, so a sample is tested before a ceiling is cut for a new fixture or a wall is opened; if it is positive, a certified asbestos abatement contractor takes it from there.
The 1990s houses came after the cutoff, and there the question is mostly taste and light. A builder's texture that suited the decade can look busy once a room is painted a deep color or lit by directed lights, and skimming it away leaves a flat wall ready for a modern finish. The borough's early fieldstone and brick houses sit outside all of this: their interior plaster is repaired as plaster, and a spray texture would be foreign to it.
Worth knowing
Same town, different walls
A borough house from 1962, the median year, is likely drywall; one from the 1830s is plaster on stone or brick. Every room starts with knowing which.
Check the room's own light
A patch is judged in the light the room actually gets, daylight and lamps both, from where people sit and stand, before the final coat goes on.
A repaint counts too
Scraping loose spots or sanding before a repaint disturbs old texture as surely as a repair does. In a 1970s township house, test first either way.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to drywall texture matching & removal.
Read the wall
The texture is studied in side light: its pattern, its height, how it was applied. Then Randy talks through the choices with you: match it, change it, or take it off. The walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.
Test older texture first
Texture or compound from before the mid-1980s should have a sample tested before anyone sands or scrapes it. If it tests positive, removal is work for a certified asbestos abatement contractor.
Repair and prime
The patch is finished flat and primed before texture goes on, so the new texture absorbs and dries the same over fresh compound as over old paint. Primer also keeps the patch from flashing through the paint later.
Match it, or bury it
To match, mix and pressure are tried on a scrap until the pattern dries the same, then texture is applied and feathered past the repair. To remove, the wall is skimmed in thin coats until the pattern is gone.
Prime and paint the whole wall
Primer evens out new and old surfaces. The whole wall is painted, corner to corner, so the sheen reads as one.
Questions
Drywall texture matching & removal, Doylestown.
Does texture work inside a house in Doylestown's historic district need HARB approval?
No. The borough's Historic Architectural Review Board looks only at exterior features that can be seen from a public street or way, and interiors are exempt. Inside, the check that matters before texture is disturbed is the asbestos test, for material that may date from before the mid-1980s.
Our 1970s house in Doylestown Township has knockdown ceilings. Can the patch where a light was removed be made invisible?
Usually, once the knockdown has tested clear. The opening is closed flush and primed, the knockdown is worked out on a test board, spatter and flattening both, until it matches, and the new texture is blended past the patch before the ceiling is painted edge to edge.
Our borough house was built in the 1960s, not the 1800s. Does that change the texture work?
Yes. A borough house from the 1960s is most likely a drywall house, and any texture on it is probably original, applied before the mid-1980s and tested before it is disturbed. After that it is matched or skimmed like any texture of its era; the plaster repair the older borough houses need does not come into it.
More in Doylestown
Other services here.
- Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
- Skim coatingRough, patched or uneven walls resurfaced smooth, often after wallpaper comes down.
- Plaster repairCracked, loose and failing plaster in older homes, repaired and made sound.
- Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
- Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
- Drywall installation & repairNew drywall hung, taped and finished; cracks, holes and water damage repaired invisibly.
- Popcorn ceiling removalOld acoustic texture taken down and the ceiling finished smooth.
- Wallpaper removalOld wallpaper and wall linings stripped without tearing up the wall beneath.
- Wood stainingDecks, porch floors, doors and trim, inside and out, stained by hand.
Nearby
Drywall texture matching & removal nearby.
Consultation
Request a private consultation.
Private walkthrough & written estimate, complimentary. Tell us a little about the house and the rooms, and Randy will be in touch to arrange a time.
- Hours
- Monday – Friday8:30 AM – 5:30 PMSaturday10 AM – 3 PMSundayClosed
- Service area
- Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown and the greater Lehigh Valley; Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Fully insured — proof on request. Residential and commercial.