Coopersburg, Lehigh County
Exterior painting in Coopersburg, PA.
The historic district mixes Federal, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival houses along Main Street, with plain brick houses on State and Fairview. The woodwork carries the paint; the brick mostly should not.
Exterior painting for Coopersburg homes
The styles the National Register names for the Coopersburg Historic District put paint in different places. Federal houses keep their ornament spare, so the painting gathers in sash, doors and cornices. Queen Anne houses spread it across porches, turned work and textured wood, which give paint far more edges to cover and keep. The district, listed in 1982, takes in 175 buildings over 93 acres around Main Street and Route 309.
The settlement grew up around a hotel on the Bethlehem Pike in the mid-1700s, and a number of houses still standing on Main Street and Station Avenue went up after the railroad arrived in 1856. Houses that old have been repainted through every era of paint since, and nearly a third of the borough's homes predate 1940.
Coopersburg
Queen Anne woodwork, Federal sash, plain brick
The Linden Grove Pavilion, built about 1900 as a cattle exercise and auction pavilion and listed on the National Register on its own, is a public example of the district's Queen Anne woodwork: two and a half stories of textured wooden siding under a slate hipped roof. Woodwork like that, and the turned posts and brackets on the district's Queen Anne houses, is prepared slowly and by hand, edge by edge.
State and Fairview Streets are lined with plain brick houses from about 1900 to 1910. That brick has stood bare for more than a century, and paint on it would hold moisture in the wall and be nearly impossible to remove cleanly, so the work on those houses is in their wood: sash and frames, doors, cornices and porches. Around the borough, Upper Saucon Township has built close to half its homes since 1990.
Worth knowing
Sills take the water
On a brick house, rain running down the wall collects on wood sills and the bottoms of frames. Those are where paint fails first, and where the preparation is slowest.
Porch floors are their own job
A porch floor takes foot traffic and standing water, so it gets a coating made to resist wear, applied separately from the rails, posts and ceiling.
Postwar exteriors
About half the borough's homes date from 1950 to 1979 and carry fewer coats than the district's. On those houses the scraping is lighter, and the attention shifts to sills, sealant and doors.
The work
How an exterior goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to exterior painting.
Every side, walked
Randy walks every side of the house with you, because the south wall and the north wall rarely need the same work. Both the walkthrough and the written estimate are complimentary.
Causes first
Where paint is peeling to bare wood, the source of the water is found and dealt with. Soft, rotted wood is repaired or replaced, because no paint holds on wet or decayed wood.
Washing
Dirt, mildew and chalk are washed off at a pressure that cleans without gouging the grain. The siding then dries completely before any primer or paint goes on.
Scraping and priming
Loose and flaking paint is scraped back to a firm edge. Bare wood is primed promptly, before the sun has time to weaken its surface.
Caulk where water gets in
Open joints where trim meets siding and around windows are caulked, and holes are filled. The bottom edges of lap siding are left open on purpose, so water can drain out and the boards can dry.
Paint in the right conditions
Finish coats go on when the temperature will hold for the paint, away from walls baking in full sun, and early enough to set before the evening dew. On most days that means following the shade around the house.
Questions
Exterior painting, Coopersburg.
What colors suit a plain brick house on State or Fairview Street?
Colors chosen against the brick itself. Its color is fixed, so trim, sash and door colors are tried beside it on the house, in daylight, rather than judged from a chip. Leaving the brick bare and letting the woodwork carry the scheme also lets moisture keep leaving the wall as it always has.
Our Queen Anne has textured siding in the gables. Why does it peel before the clapboard below?
Textured siding has more edges and shadowed recesses, so it stays wet longer after rain and gives paint more places to lift. It is scraped wherever paint has let go, checked for soft wood, primed where bare, and caulked only where it meets trim, never across its courses, so it can still drain.
We are on Main Street in the historic district. Do we need permission to repaint?
The National Register listing is not what decides it: listing on its own puts no restrictions on what a private owner does. Any local requirement would come from the borough, and a short call before the work is booked settles the question for your house.
More in Coopersburg
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.
- Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
- 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.