Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Easton, Northampton County

Interior painting in Easton, PA.

Rooms lit from one end, plaster with a century of patches, Victorian trim to cut around: interior painting in Easton starts with the house, and the color comes after.

Request a private consultation Call or text (484) 546-3660
A period dining room with white walls, a dark wood corner cabinet, and a doorway looking through to the staircase.
A period dining room in white.

Interior painting for Easton homes

Nearly two-thirds of the city's homes went up before 1940, and attached houses, rows and twins, are its most common type. In a row home the side walls are shared with the neighbors, so daylight comes in at the front and the back and thins out toward the middle of the house. Color behaves differently in rooms like that. The wall that holds the window is usually the darkest in the room, and a shade that looked right on a sample card can turn heavy by the far wall.

The plaster in those rooms has usually been patched for a century, and old walls rarely run flat. Light from a single window travels along the walls beside it at a low angle and finds every ridge. So the order of the work matters as much as the color: plaster repaired and brought true, trim cleaned up and caulked where the wall has pulled away, and only then the finish coats.

Easton

West Ward bays, stained glass and one-window rooms

The West Ward filled in from the 1880s to the 1910s, large houses first and then row homes, and about seven in ten of its homes predate 1940. Victorian style held there until about 1920, so window bays and stained glass are common. A bay is three windows set at angles with short runs of wall between them, nearly all of it cut in by brush. Stained glass throws colored light across a wall for part of the day, so a color is judged at more than one hour before it is settled.

College Hill runs from the 1830s to 1940, from mansions to the pattern-catalog houses of its northwest corner, built between 1906 and 1940. The big houses mean more woodwork and more plaster to bring true; in the plainer ones, the trim often wears so many coats that its profiles have gone soft. Past the city line, about half of Forks Township's homes date from 2000 or later: open rooms and long drywall walls.

A living room painted deep charcoal, with white window trim and a white fireplace surround; sunlight falls across dark hardwood floors.
Charcoal walls in window light.

Worth knowing

  1. The window wall

    The wall that holds a room's only window gets no direct light from it. It can take a color a step lighter than the others, or simply be left to read as the room's shadow.

  2. Shared walls

    Party walls in rows and twins often carry long cracks and layers of old patches. Light from the front window tends to rake along them, so they are repaired before any color goes on.

  3. Narrow stairs

    Stairs in row homes tend to be tight. The walls above them are reached from staging set on the treads, and the treads and rail are covered before a can is opened.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to interior painting.

Two painters on extension ladders cutting in a cream ceiling above arched windows and honey wood paneling, beside a marigold wall.
Cutting in a cream ceiling above arched windows.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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, Easton.

Our row home is dim in the middle rooms. Which colors work there?

Lighter is not always brighter: in a room without direct light, every color reads a step darker than its card. Warm whites and soft colors with a little yellow or red in them tend to hold up better in that light than cool grays, which can go flat. Test patches on your own walls, seen morning and evening, tell you more than any card.

We have stained glass in our West Ward house. Should it change the color we choose?

It can. Colored glass tints the light that passes through it, and when the sun is on it, that light lands on the walls and pulls a paint color toward its own. Look at samples with the sun coming through the glass as well as without it, and favor a color that still pleases in both.

Is a dark color a mistake in a row-home stair hall?

Often it is the right call. A stair hall that never gets much daylight can look deliberate in a deep color, where a pale one would only look gloomy. Dark paint does show every wave in old plaster, though, so the walls are repaired and skimmed true before it goes on.

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. Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
  5. Drywall installation & repairNew drywall hung, taped and finished; cracks, holes and water damage repaired invisibly.
  6. Drywall texture matching & removalTexture matched so repairs disappear, applied where you want it, or taken off for a smooth wall.
  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.