Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Emmaus, Lehigh County

Drywall texture matching & removal in Emmaus, PA.

The 1950s built more of Emmaus than any other decade, and texture from those years has carried seventy years of paint. Matching it means matching its age as well as its pattern.

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

Drywall texture matching & removal for Emmaus homes

No decade built more of the borough than the 1950s: about one in five of today's homes, as the population rose by nearly a third. With its borders fixed since the 1960s and built out to them, the borough has added only about one home in nine since 1990. Most textured walls and ceilings here are likely to be old ones, and texture or compound from before the mid-1980s is tested before it is cut or sanded, since either can contain asbestos.

Age shows in a texture. Each coat of paint fills its hollows and rounds its peaks a little more, so a pattern applied in the 1950s looks softer today than the same pattern sprayed fresh beside it. A repair meant to disappear is matched to that worn profile, which often means a lighter hand with the material, and a flatter finish where it was knocked down.

Emmaus

A 1950s borough, seventy years of paint

The oldest walls in town predate drywall by centuries. The Shelter House, a log house from about 1734, was chinked with mud, straw and horse hair, and lime plaster with animal hair in it was the usual wall until the end of the 1800s. The prewar houses, about 27 percent of the borough's homes, are plaster; texture on them was added later, if at all, and their repairs follow the plaster rather than a drywall pattern.

Past the borough line the stock gets younger, decade by decade. More than half of Salisbury Township's homes date from 1950 to 1979, inside the window for testing, while Upper Milford built nearly half of its homes between 1970 and 1999, a span that runs right through the mid-1980s cutoff. There a build date alone may not settle it, and a test does.

A room with its ceiling part-way through a skim coat, a painter working beneath it among tools and buckets.
A ceiling mid skim coat.

Worth knowing

  1. Seventy years of patches

    A texture repaired over the decades may no longer be one pattern. Matching it then means choosing which version the wall should read as.

  2. Heat through the winter

    Compound and texture want a room held at 50°F or warmer before and during the work. In a January that averages below freezing, the heat stays on, even in an empty house.

  3. Flat paint over old texture

    A flat finish hides small differences between new texture and old, while eggshell and satin show them. The sheen for that room is chosen with the repair in mind.

The work

How the work goes

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

A ceiling and walls patched in white compound, a work table of tools in the middle of the room.
Ceiling and walls, patched mid-job.

  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, Emmaus.

Our Emmaus house dates from the 1950s. Can its old texture still be matched?

Usually, after a sample of the old texture has tested clear. The pattern is read in side light, including how much decades of paint have softened it, and the new texture is rehearsed on a sample board and adjusted until it dries to the same softness. The whole wall is then primed and painted so old and new read as one.

Does texture belong on the walls of the borough's oldest houses?

Not as a rule. Houses from the Moravian village years and the 1800s were generally finished in lime plaster, and a sprayed texture on one of them was put there later. Repairs in those houses are finished to the plaster's own surface, so the walls keep their character.

Is it worth skimming the texture off in a 1950s Emmaus room?

Often, if the room is getting new light or a deeper color, or the old texture has been patched so many times it no longer reads as one pattern. Skimming fills the texture in thin coats until the wall is flat, after a test. Where the texture is sound and the room is staying as it is, matching a repair is the smaller job.

More in Emmaus

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.