Macungie, Lehigh County
Interior painting in Macungie, PA.
Attached homes outnumber detached ones in the borough, and the township around it is full of 2000s great rooms. Both put the hardest painting high on a wall, above a stair or a sofa.
Interior painting for Macungie homes
Attached homes, twins, rows and townhouses, outnumber detached houses in the borough, and the 1980s added more of its homes than any other decade. Across the line in Lower Macungie, about a third of the houses went up between 2000 and 2009, in the years when a two-story great room was nearly standard.
Those two kinds of house share one problem for a painter: height. In an attached house it is usually the stairwell, a narrow run of wall that climbs beside the stairs and can only be reached from them. In the township it is the great room, where a wall rises two stories to meet the ceiling along a line that everyone sees from the sofa.
Macungie
Townhouse stairwells and Lower Macungie great rooms
A stair in an attached house often runs along a shared wall, and the wall above it is the tallest in the house with no floor beneath it. Painting it means staging set on the treads and landing, with the steps covered first. It is also the most handled wall in the house, brushed by shoulders, laundry baskets and furniture on the way up and down, so the finish there is chosen to be wiped.
The great rooms of the 2000s set a different test. Where a two-story wall meets a sloped or vaulted ceiling, the cut line runs a long way at an angle, seen from below and lit from the side by high windows, and it has to look straight even where the corner itself is not. The older houses along Main Street, about one home in six in the borough, are the exception to all this height: plaster walls, older trim and slower preparation.
Worth knowing
Stair-wall sheen
A stair wall in an attached house takes more wear than any other. Eggshell or satin wipes clean of the scuffs that would mark a flat finish for good.
Forty-year drywall
Drywall from the 1980s, the borough's biggest decade, often shows nail pops and seam cracks by now. They are reset and spotted before paint, or they print through the new color.
Floors under the staging
In a great room, staging stands on padded feet or boards, so it can be moved across finished wood or tile without marking it.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to interior painting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, Macungie.
How is the stairwell in a Macungie townhouse painted?
From staging set on the stairs and landing, with the treads and rail covered before anything else. The top of the wall is cut in along the ceiling first, then the wall is rolled from the top down in one continuous pass, so the long sweep above the stair dries evenly.
Why does the line between our great-room wall and ceiling look crooked?
Usually because the corner itself is not straight. Long drywall corners in tall rooms often wander a little, and a cut line that follows every bend shows each one. A careful painter splits the difference, carrying the ceiling color a hair onto the wall where the corner dips, so the line reads straight from the floor.
Is painting a pre-1940 Main Street house different from painting a newer one?
Mostly in what comes before the paint. Plaster walls of that age need their cracks and loose areas repaired and their patches leveled, and older trim needs scraping, sanding and caulking where it has parted from the wall. The borough's zoning protects the outside of these houses, not their rooms, so inside the choices are yours.
More in Macungie
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.
- 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.