Doylestown, Bucks County
Interior painting in Doylestown, PA.
The borough's 1830s houses set a side hall beside two parlors that open into each other. Color there is judged across rooms and in two different lights, never one wall at a time.
Interior painting for Doylestown homes
The town's signature house is late-Federal, built in numbers in the 1830s when Doylestown became a borough: two and a half stories, three bays wide, with a side hall and a pair of parlors opening one into the other. That plan sets the interior painting problem. From the front door you look down the hall, and from one parlor straight into the next, so colors are never judged one room at a time.
The two parlors also face opposite ways, one to the street and one to the back of the lot, so the same paint is seen in two lights a few steps apart. A color chosen in the front room at noon can look heavier in the rear parlor by late afternoon, or the other way around, depending on which way the house faces. Samples are best judged in both rooms, at the hours the rooms are used.
Doylestown
Side halls, double parlors and mansard top floors
The side hall holds the stair, which usually makes it the tallest wall in the house and the first thing seen from the door. It gets the most careful preparation, since it stays in view from the stair and both parlors, and its trim color tends to set the one the rest of the floor follows. Where old casings have parted from the plaster, the gaps are filled before a single line is cut.
Later decades brought other interiors. The larger houses of the 1870s and 1880s took the mansard roof, which turned the top floor into full rooms instead of an attic, with dormers set into the slope. Beyond the borough line, Doylestown Township is another house entirely: four in five of its homes were built between 1960 and 1999, with drywall walls and, in many of the later ones, rooms that rise two stories.
Worth knowing
One trim color through
With rooms seen through one another, one trim color and one sheen across the main floor keep the eye moving. The changes are left to the walls.
Inside is yours
The borough's review board covers only exterior features that can be seen from a public street. Interiors are exempt, so the colors inside are the owner's call alone.
Chimney breasts
The plaster over an old chimney breast can show brown stains from the flue. They come back through ordinary paint unless they are sealed with a stain-blocking primer first.
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, Doylestown.
Our double parlors face north in front and south in back. Should both be the same color?
They can be, but expect them to read differently. North light is cool and even and pulls a color toward gray; south light is warm and changes through the day. Warming the north room a little, or cooling the south one, can make the pair look matched when seen together, or the difference can simply be left as part of the house.
Our house has a mansard top floor. Is it painted like the floors below?
Mostly, though its rooms take more brushwork for their size: dormer windows set into the roof slope, short walls, and angles where the roof meets the room. Those angles are the joints most likely to crack, so they are checked and repaired before any paint goes on.
Do you also paint the newer houses in Doylestown Township?
Yes. Most township homes went up between 1960 and 1999, and the work there is mostly drywall: walls patched over the years, builder trim, and in many 1990s houses a two-story foyer whose upper walls need staging to reach.
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.
- 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.