Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Bethlehem, Northampton and Lehigh Counties

Level 5 drywall finish in Bethlehem, PA.

In the Central Bethlehem Historic District, the review board weighs luster as well as color on the outside of a house. Indoors the sheen is your call, and it decides whether a wall needs Level 5.

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A smooth, freshly finished white wall meeting a wood floor, light raking along its length.
A finished wall in raking light.

Level 5 drywall finish for Bethlehem homes

Flat paint forgives a lot. Eggshell, satin and semi-gloss do not: their shine picks out every change in the surface beneath, which is why the drywall standard stops recommending Level 4 as soon as a paint has any sheen. Kitchens, baths and family rooms, the rooms that need wiping down, usually get one of those finishes, since flat paint is the hardest to keep clean.

That puts the question in a great many Bethlehem houses. About half the city's homes went up between 1940 and 1979, the decades when drywall became the usual wall, and two-thirds of Bethlehem Township's have been built since 1980. When a room in one of them is built or rebuilt, its new walls can be finished to Level 5 before the first coat of primer.

Bethlehem

Bethlehem Township's newer houses, and the city's plaster

Past the city line the numbers turn over. Two-thirds of the homes in Bethlehem Township and in Hanover Township date from 1980 or later, more than a quarter of Bethlehem Township's from 2000 on, and Freemansburg has built about a third of its homes since 2000. These houses were drywall from the start, and the two-story great room, a fixture of the 1990s and 2000s, puts a lot of that board under the low side light the standard calls critical.

Inside the city the walls are older and more mixed. About three in ten homes predate 1940: brick and stone on the north side, row homes on the South Side, twins along the West Side's avenues, large houses of 1910 to 1930 in Mount Airy. Those walls are mostly plaster, and sound plaster gets a skim coat. Level 5 belongs in those houses only where drywall has replaced plaster and the new board has to take paint the way its neighbors do.

A living room painted deep charcoal, with white window trim and a white fireplace surround; sunlight falls across dark hardwood floors.
Charcoal walls in window light.

Worth knowing

  1. Try the sheen in place

    A sample of the chosen sheen, rolled onto a primed patch and seen in the room's own side light, shows what it will reveal before a whole wall is committed to it.

  2. Period rooms in plaster

    Mount Airy's large houses and the older brick and stone of the north side have plaster walls. Eggshell or a deep color there calls for a skim coat over sound plaster, the existing-wall version of the same idea.

  3. South Side rows, rebuilt

    Where a renovation in a South Side row home has replaced plaster with drywall, the new board is the wall to finish to Level 5, and the plaster walls it meets are skimmed to match.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to level 5 drywall finish.

A room in an older house with its walls patched and part-way through a skim coat, a radiator cover under the window.
Walls part-way through a skim coat.

  1. A walkthrough in the room’s light

    Randy walks the rooms with you and says which walls need Level 5 and which don’t. It helps to look at the hour the light is hardest. The walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.

  2. Joints finished to Level 4

    Tape is bedded in compound at every joint; flat joints get two more coats, inside corners one, screw heads three. Each coat dries hard before the next, with the house kept warm and steady.

  3. A skim coat, edge to edge

    Compound is spread over the entire surface and wiped back tight with a wide knife or trowel, leaving a thin film over paper and joints alike. Where one pass doesn’t cover, a second follows.

  4. Sanded, then primed

    The dry surface is sanded smooth without scuffing the paper beneath. Primer goes on before any color, so the finish coats absorb evenly across the whole wall.

  5. Judged in its own light

    Finish coats go on last. The standard’s test is the one that counts: the wall seen from five feet back, under the light the room will actually have.

Questions

Level 5 drywall finish, Bethlehem.

Does the Historic District review board look at paint sheen?

On exteriors, yes. The board's guidelines say paint colors and luster should suit the building's style and are subject to review where changes are visible from a public way. The finish inside the house is a separate choice, and it is the one that tells you whether a wall needs Level 5.

Our great room in Bethlehem Township has satin paint, and the seams show. What can be done?

Satin over a Level 4 wall is the pairing the standard warns against. The walls can be skimmed over the paint, primed and repainted in the same satin, or simply repainted in a flatter sheen, which hides more but is harder to keep clean. The walkthrough is the place to weigh that trade.

Is eggshell enough of a sheen to need a Level 5 wall?

By the drywall standard, yes: Level 4 is meant for flat paint, and anything above flat, eggshell included, is referred to Level 5. On a short wall in soft light the difference may be slight; on a long wall beside a window it usually is not.

More in Bethlehem

Other services here.

  1. Skim coatingRough, patched or uneven walls resurfaced smooth, often after wallpaper comes down.
  2. Plaster repairCracked, loose and failing plaster in older homes, repaired and made sound.
  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.