Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Easton, Northampton County

Drywall texture matching & removal in Easton, PA.

Most of Easton's houses were plastered before spray texture came along. Inside the city, a repair is matched to old plaster; past the city line, to the orange peel and knockdown of the drywall decades.

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A wall opened down to its studs, with new drywall already hung on the ceiling above.
A wall opened to the studs; new drywall on the ceiling.

Drywall texture matching & removal for Easton homes

Spray textures such as orange peel and knockdown are made from joint compound, and they arrived with drywall, after plaster had been the standard wall for generations. About 63 percent of the city's homes were built before 1940, so inside the city line texture is the less common problem. A West Ward row home or a College Hill house is usually plaster, and a repair there has to vanish into the plaster's own surface, not into a sprayed pattern.

Past the city line the houses change, and the texture work with them. About four in ten Palmer Township homes were built between 1950 and 1979, and half of Forks Township's have gone up since 2000. Those are mostly drywall houses. A patched ceiling or a new doorway there has to carry the same spatter or knockdown as its surroundings, or the texture comes off and the room is skimmed smooth.

Easton

Plaster inside the city, spray texture beyond it

Old plaster has a face of its own: harder than joint compound, often troweled smooth, and in the early 1900s sometimes floated with fine sand. The West Ward filled in from the 1880s to the 1910s, and College Hill's northwest side with pattern-catalog houses from 1906 to 1940. A glass-smooth drywall patch still reads as a patch on walls like those, so it is brought to the plaster's plane and given its surface before priming.

Around Easton, spray texture belongs mainly to houses built after drywall took over, and most of those are in the townships, Palmer's 1950s to 1970s houses among them. Texture and compound from before the mid-1980s can contain asbestos that no one can see, so in a Palmer house of that age a sample is tested before the wall is cut or sanded. A positive result makes removal the work of a certified asbestos abatement contractor.

Close-up of a wall part-way through a skim coat, the compound’s knife strokes catching the light.
A skim coat, close up.

Worth knowing

  1. Plaster's face, not a pattern

    A repair in a prewar Easton wall is finished to the plaster's own hard, smooth face, or to its sand finish where it has one. A sprayed pattern would only outline the patch.

  2. Palmer's testing window

    About four in ten Palmer Township homes date from 1950 to 1979. Original texture in a house of that age is sampled before anyone cuts, scrapes or sands it.

  3. The boroughs at the edge

    Wilson, West Easton and Glendon are each more than half prewar. Their walls are more often plaster than drywall, and repairs there follow the plaster.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to drywall texture matching & removal.

A two-story stairwell wall patched and primed in white over a wood banister, a chandelier hanging below.
A stairwell wall, patched and primed.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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, Easton.

Why does the drywall patch in our West Ward plaster wall still show after painting?

Usually because the surfaces differ, not the paint. Plaster is harder and less absorbent than joint compound, and if the old finish coat has sand in it, a smooth patch reads as a flat, dull spot in side light. The fix is to bring the patch to the wall's plane, give it the same surface, prime it, and paint the whole wall.

Are houses in Palmer and Forks townships likely to have textured walls?

Likelier than houses in the city, though it varies from house to house. Palmer's houses from the 1950s to the 1970s belong to the drywall decades, when sprayed ceilings were common, and any texture original to them should be tested before it is disturbed. Newer Forks and Williams houses depend on what the builder chose, and a walkthrough settles it room by room.

Should the cracks in an old Easton plaster ceiling be hidden under a spray texture?

Texture alone is rarely a lasting answer. Texture can disguise cracks for a while, but it does not stop the movement that caused them, and they tend to come back through it. Securing loose plaster and repairing the cracks, then skimming, deals with the cause; if you still want texture after that, it can go over a sound surface.

More in Easton

Other services here.

  1. Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
  2. Skim coatingRough, patched or uneven walls resurfaced smooth, often after wallpaper comes down.
  3. Plaster repairCracked, loose and failing plaster in older homes, repaired and made sound.
  4. Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
  5. Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
  6. Drywall installation & repairNew drywall hung, taped and finished; cracks, holes and water damage repaired invisibly.
  7. Popcorn ceiling removalOld acoustic texture taken down and the ceiling finished smooth.
  8. Wallpaper removalOld wallpaper and wall linings stripped without tearing up the wall beneath.
  9. Wood stainingDecks, porch floors, doors and trim, inside and out, stained by hand.

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.

Randy’sPainting & DrywallReply card
The project
Preferred contact

Walkthrough & written estimate, complimentary.