Allentown, Lehigh County
Interior painting in Allentown, PA.
Old Allentown and the Old Fairgrounds were built as rows of brick with carved, turned and molded woodwork inside. Painting those rooms is mostly a matter of the trim, done without burying it.
Interior painting for Allentown homes
Molded casings, turned balusters, a carved newel at the foot of the stair: in the city's older rowhouses the woodwork often matters more to the finished room than the walls do. Four in ten homes here were built before 1940, and rowhouses and twins outnumber every other kind. In Old Allentown and the Old Fairgrounds the rows went up between the 1850s and the 1910s, in Italianate, Eastlake, Queen Anne and Second Empire dress, and that taste for ornament tended to carry indoors.
Every bead and turning holds old paint, and each new coat softens the profile a little more. Good work keeps the edges sharp: loose paint taken back to a sound layer, gaps filled where plaster has pulled away from the casings, and the trim brushed in a sheen that stands up to hands without pooling in the carving.
Allentown
Mansard top floors and Eastlake woodwork
Second Empire rows in Old Allentown wear slate mansards on their fronts, so the top-floor front room sits partly inside the roof. Its daylight comes through dormers set into the slope, framed by short, deep reveals of plaster that take the sun directly and show every old patch. Nothing in a room like that is quite square, and the line between wall and ceiling is cut by eye rather than by a level.
Eastlake rows, common across the city, lean on ornament rather than massing, and indoors that often means busy woodwork at doors, windows and stairs. Brushing it is slow, and in a room with sound walls it is most of the job. West Park, built from 1895 to 1930, is larger and more varied, Queen Anne beside Colonial Revival and Craftsman, and there the rooms open up enough that a long wall in low sun puts the plaster under more scrutiny than the trim.
Worth knowing
Windows that still open
The city's historic-district guidelines ask owners to keep wood windows painted inside and out, and to free sash that paint has sealed shut. Interior sash is painted so it can still slide, not glued closed again.
Turned stair parts
Balusters and newels are brushed one at a time, with the treads below covered, since the stair is the one floor in a rowhouse that everyone still has to use.
Doors that close
Old doors rub because their edges have been painted again and again. The edges are sanded back rather than built up further, so the door still shuts when the work is done.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to interior painting.
The walkthrough
Randy walks the rooms with you and looks at the walls in the light they actually get. He tells you plainly what they need, then puts it in writing. The walkthrough and the written estimate are complimentary.
Repairs first
Cracks, holes, nail pops and failing plaster are dealt with before anything else, and every patch is sanded flat. Paint doesn’t hide a poor patch; it shows it.
Primer where it’s needed
Patches, bare drywall and stains are primed. Joint compound takes up paint differently from a painted wall, and an unprimed patch can flash through the finish as a dull spot.
Finish coats
Ceilings, walls and trim are cut in and rolled or brushed, each in the sheen chosen for it. A big change of color takes more coats than a refresh, and the number is set by the wall, not the calendar.
Seen in the room’s own light
Before the drop cloths come up, the walls are looked at in the light the room really has, from its windows and its lamps. Low sun and lamplight show what an overhead work light hides.
Questions
Interior painting, Allentown.
Why is the paint on our rowhouse ceiling peeling in sheets?
In houses of this age, the bottom layer on a ceiling is sometimes calcimine, an old water-based ceiling coating that turns chalky. Later coats never bonded well to it, and each one adds weight that pulls the stack loose. The loose paint comes off, the chalky layer is washed away, and the ceiling is primed with a binding primer before it is painted again.
How do you keep carved woodwork in an Eastlake row from looking clogged?
With thin coats and good preparation. Each layer of paint fills the carving a little more, so failing paint is scraped back until what remains is sound, the surface is cleaned and dulled, and the finish goes on in as few coats as will cover. A satin or semi-gloss also shows the profile better than a flat finish, because light catches the edges.
Can the rooms be painted while we live in a narrow rowhouse?
Usually, yes. The work moves room by room, with furniture gathered and covered in the middle or moved to another floor, and the stair kept clear, since in a rowhouse it is the only way up and down. The order is worked out with you at the walkthrough.
More in Allentown
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.
- 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.
- Drywall texture matching & removalTexture matched so repairs disappear, applied where you want it, or taken off for a smooth wall.
- 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.
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.