Hellertown, Northampton County
Skim coating in Hellertown, PA.
Hellertown built more of its homes in the 1940s and 1950s than in any other era. Small upstairs rooms under the roof, often lit from one window, are where decades of patches show.
Skim coating for Hellertown homes
Between 1940 and 1959 the borough added more homes than in any other period, about 37 percent of what stands today, from the Mountainview section to the Cape Cods of Durham Terrace. Seventy-odd years on, those walls have held every curtain rod, shelf and picture hook their owners wanted, and most of the holes are still there under the paint.
A skim coat is how rooms like that get a clean start. Rather than chasing each old repair with another, thin coats go over the entire wall, and the sloped ceiling too where there is one, so the paint lands on one even surface instead of a field of filled holes.
Hellertown
Capes under the roof, one window to a room
Durham Terrace's 154 houses, built between 1951 and 1954, are one and a half stories with gabled roofs, and a central stair climbs to two small bedrooms upstairs. Rooms tucked under a roof have slopes meeting short knee walls and are often lit from a single window. Light from one opening crosses the walls and the slope at a low angle, and that is the light that finds every ridge, dent and filled hole.
Main Street, the old King's Highway, holds the borough's oldest houses, from about 1800 into the early 1900s, and their walls are another job: plaster under generations of paint, cracks filled more than once, and sections that may need refastening before a skim goes anywhere near them. In the township around the borough, where about half the homes date from 1980 on, skimming is mostly for walls patched or stripped along the way.
Worth knowing
The slope is part of the wall
In a room under the roof, the sloped ceiling is skimmed along with the walls. Left as it is, its old surface sits right beside the new one at eye level.
Fix the angles first
Cracks where a slope meets a knee wall or the flat ceiling are retaped before skimming. Otherwise the line tends to work its way back through the new surface.
1960s and 1970s texture
About one Hellertown home in five dates from 1960 to 1979. Any texture applied before the mid-1980s gets a sample tested before it is sanded or scraped, and if asbestos turns up, a certified asbestos abatement contractor takes it off.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to skim coating.
Walkthrough and estimate
Randy walks the rooms with you, looks at how sound the plaster and old paint are, and explains what each wall needs. The walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.
Repairs first
Loose plaster is reattached, cracks are opened and bridged with mesh tape, and deep holes are filled with setting-type compound, which shrinks less than ordinary joint compound. A skim over an unsound wall only hides the problem for a while.
Clean, dull, seal
Walls are washed and glossy paint is dulled so the compound can grip. Torn paper facing and leftover wallpaper paste are sealed with an oil- or shellac-based primer, because water in the compound would make them bubble.
Thin coats, edge to edge
Compound is spread over the whole wall and wiped back tight, then left to dry hard before the next pass. Thin coats, never one heavy one: thick compound shrinks and cracks as it dries.
Sand, prime, paint
The dry wall is sanded smooth and cleaned of dust. Primer evens out how the surface absorbs, so the paint dries to the same sheen everywhere.
Questions
Skim coating, Hellertown.
Can the sloped ceiling in a Durham Terrace bedroom be skim coated too?
Yes. A slope is skimmed much like a flat ceiling, with the compound worked overhead and the angles kept straight where it meets the walls. Skimming the walls and leaving the slope tends to make the slope look worse by comparison.
Our Mountainview house has walls full of old anchor holes. Is a skim coat overkill?
Not when there are many of them. Each filled hole takes paint a little differently from the wall around it, and dozens of them read as a speckled wall in side light. Past a certain number, skimming the whole wall is the cleaner answer, and the walkthrough is where that line gets drawn.
Is plaster from the 1800s too old to take a skim coat?
Age is not the problem; looseness is. Old plaster that is still keyed to its lath takes a skim coat well. Sections that have come away are fastened back or cut out and refilled first, and the trim stays in place throughout.
More in Hellertown
Other services here.
- Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
- Plaster repairCracked, loose and failing plaster in older homes, repaired and made sound.
- Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
- 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.