Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Allentown, Lehigh County

Drywall installation & repair in Allentown, PA.

About four in ten Allentown homes predate 1940 and more than four in ten date from 1940 to 1979. Few are new, so the drywall work here is mostly old walls opened, repaired and closed again so the patch never shows.

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A beige wall with a long L-shaped patch and many smaller patches in white compound, a stepladder beside it.
Patches set and drying.

Drywall installation & repair for Allentown homes

Only about one home in nine in the city has been built since 1990. That changes what drywall work means here: less of it is new houses settling, and more of it is older walls opened for a kitchen, a bath, new wiring or a leak, then closed again so the repair can't be found.

Rowhouses and twins outnumber detached houses in Allentown, and the oldest of them, in Old Allentown and the Old Fairgrounds, went up between the 1850s and about 1910 with plaster walls. The 1940s-to-1970s houses came after, in the years when plaster and drywall overlapped, and so did more than half of neighboring Salisbury Township's homes, built from 1950 to 1979.

Allentown

Old Allentown rowhouses, opened and closed again

The Census counts a rowhouse as attached when its shared wall runs from ground to roof. In rowhouses of the 1850s to the 1910s, a new kitchen, a bath or modern wiring usually means opening plaster, and each opening becomes a patch with lath and plaster on every side. Because plaster on wood lath runs thicker than a standard sheet of drywall, the new piece is packed out to the old surface first; set straight onto the studs, it would leave a shallow dish under the paint.

Water is the other constant. Precipitation is spread almost evenly through the year, eight to twelve days a month, and a tired roof, gutter or flashing on an older rowhouse can show it first in a top-floor ceiling. Once the leak is fixed and the ceiling has dried, firm areas are sealed and repainted, and anything soft is cut out and replaced with board brought to the ceiling's depth.

The same wall repaired and painted a soft beige, a wooden trunk sitting against it.
After: the same wall, repaired and painted. Her photograph.

Worth knowing

  1. Few new-house pops

    With so few homes built since 1990, pops from fresh framing are rarer here than in the townships; a popped fastener in an older wall usually means board knocked loose or never fastened tight, and it is pulled back with a new screw before it is refinished.

  2. Mixed walls in one house

    A rowhouse remodeled more than once can hold lime plaster, gypsum-lath plaster and drywall in neighboring rooms, and each patch is built to the thickness of the wall it sits in.

  3. Salisbury and South Whitehall

    Next door, more than half of Salisbury Township's homes date from 1950 to 1979 and most of South Whitehall's from 1950 to 1989, so the drywall work there is midcentury: settled joints, old patches and remodels.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to drywall installation & repair.

A wall opened down to its studs, with new drywall already hung on the ceiling above.
A wall opened to the studs; new drywall on the ceiling.

  1. Look at the cause

    Randy looks at the damage with you and explains what it will take. Where water is involved, the leak has to be fixed and the framing dry before anything is closed up. The walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.

  2. Cut back to sound material

    Damaged board is cut out to clean, square edges, often back to the framing, so the new piece has something solid to fasten to. Damaged studs are replaced while the wall is open.

  3. Hang it tight and flush

    New board is cut to fit and screwed to the framing with its edges level with the old, because a high edge leaves no room for tape and compound. Wide gaps are filled with setting-type compound before taping.

  4. Tape and coat

    Joints are taped and built up in thin coats, feathered wide. Torn paper is sealed with an oil- or shellac-based primer first, since water in the compound would raise it into bubbles.

  5. Blend, prime, paint

    Texture is matched where the wall has it. The repair is primed so it won’t show as a dull patch, and the wall is painted corner to corner so the sheen reads evenly.

Questions

Drywall installation & repair, Allentown.

We're redoing the kitchen in our Old Fairgrounds twin. Do the plaster walls have to come out?

Usually not all of them. Walls that only need new outlets or plumbing are opened where the work is and patched with board, while sound plaster stays. Where a wall is badly damaged or being moved, that section is replaced with drywall, and the joints to the remaining plaster are built up and feathered so the change can't be seen.

Can a sagging plaster ceiling in an Old Allentown rowhouse be covered with drywall?

Often. Where the old ceiling is still mostly attached, new board can be hung over it and fastened through into the joists; where it is coming down, it is taken down first and the ceiling is hung fresh. The walkthrough settles which, along with whether the trim at the ceiling's edge has to come off and go back.

Our 1950s house has old patches that show through every coat of paint. Can they be made to disappear?

Usually. Patches show because they sit proud or low, or because they soak up paint differently from the wall around them. High ones are cut back, low ones are built up and feathered, and the whole area is primed before the wall is painted corner to corner.

More in Allentown

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. Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
  5. Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
  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.