Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Coopersburg, Lehigh County

Plaster repair in Coopersburg, PA.

Nearly a third of Coopersburg's homes predate 1940, and the historic district along Main Street holds houses from the stagecoach years to the 1910s. Repairing their plaster starts with reading its age.

Request a private consultation Call or text (484) 546-3660
A restored period dining room with smooth white walls, a white corner fireplace, a glass pendant and wall sconces.
After: the same house’s dining room, restored.

Plaster repair for Coopersburg homes

Nearly a third of the borough's homes, about 350 houses, were built before 1940, and the historic district listed in 1982 counts 175 buildings in Federal, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles, with construction going back to 1750. Houses of those periods were plastered as a matter of course.

The rest of the borough is a different job. About half its homes were built between 1950 and 1979, and close to half of Upper Saucon Township's have gone up since 1990; those are mostly drywall houses. Plaster repair around Coopersburg concerns the older third of the borough and the township's older houses, where the walls hold a century or more of settling, leaks and earlier repairs.

Coopersburg

Stagecoach houses, railroad houses and the plaster in each

The village grew around a hotel on the Bethlehem Pike, with log houses for the tradesmen who served the wagons and stagecoaches. In early houses the trim was often set before the walls were plastered; by the mid-1800s, plasterers worked to wooden grounds and the woodwork went on afterward. So plaster that runs behind a casing or baseboard hints at an early room, which is worth knowing before anything is pried off for a repair.

The railroad arrived in 1856 and brought new houses to Main Street and Station Avenue; plain brick houses followed on State and Fairview Streets around 1900 to 1910, and in the same years some Main Street houses were remodeled or built new in Queen Anne and Colonial Revival dress. That last wave came as gypsum was replacing lime, so a house remodeled then can hold both plasters, and a patch has to suit the one it meets.

A stripped period wall of failing plaster, patched in places, with a bucket and loose paper on the floor.
Before: a period wall stripped back to failing plaster.

Worth knowing

  1. Bare brick keeps walls drier

    Paint can trap moisture in a masonry wall. On the plain brick houses of State and Fairview, leaving never-painted brick bare helps keep the plaster on the inside face dry.

  2. Listing is not a rule book

    National Register listing doesn't by itself restrict what a private owner does. For exterior work that goes with a plaster repair, check with the borough first.

  3. Read the layers first

    Old plaster keeps a record of its room in layers of paint and paper. When a wall in a district house is opened, they are worth a look before they are covered again.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to plaster repair.

A period foyer and staircase mid-renovation, the floor strewn with stripped material and a painter at work.
Before: a period foyer mid-renovation.

  1. Find the cause

    Every repair starts with why the plaster failed: a leak, a settling corner, a ceiling carrying too much. Randy walks the rooms with you, and the walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.

  2. Reattach what’s loose

    Plaster that has lost its keys but is otherwise sound can be drawn back to the lath with screws and broad plaster washers. It doesn’t have to come down.

  3. Bridge the cracks

    Cracks are opened slightly, bridged with fiberglass mesh tape and filled with setting-type compound, which hardens by chemical reaction and shrinks less than ordinary joint compound. A finer compound goes on last, because setting compound is hard to sand.

  4. Rebuild what’s missing

    Where plaster is gone down to the lath, the old edges get a bonding agent and the hole is built back up in layers, each stepped over the last. Larger openings can take a piece of board shimmed to the plaster’s thickness instead.

  5. Finish to the wall around it

    The repair is feathered into the old surface, or the whole wall is skimmed so old and new read as one. On a wavy old wall, the patch follows the wall’s contour; a dead-flat patch would stand out.

Questions

Plaster repair, Coopersburg.

Our house on State Street is brick. Why is the plaster on its outside walls flaking?

Flaking plaster on the inside of a brick wall usually means moisture is reaching it through the masonry and bringing salts to the surface. The cause is outside: worn mortar joints, a downspout emptying against the wall, or ground that slopes toward the house. Once that is put right and the wall has dried, the damaged plaster is cut back and rebuilt.

Part of our house dates from the 1800s and part from a remodel around 1910. Will the repairs look different?

They shouldn't. The two parts may well have different plaster, lime in the older rooms and gypsum in the newer, and each is patched with materials that suit it. Every repair is then finished to the surface around it, so once painted the walls read alike.

Do you also repair plaster in Upper Saucon's older houses?

Yes. Randy serves the township around the borough, including Center Valley and Limeport. Only about six percent of Upper Saucon's homes predate 1940, so plaster work there is in those older houses rather than the subdivisions.

More in Coopersburg

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. Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
  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.