Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Easton, Northampton County

Level 5 drywall finish in Easton, PA.

Most of Easton's older houses are plastered, and sound plaster asks for a skim coat, not Level 5. The finish belongs where new drywall goes up: a re-boarded room in the city, or a newer house past the city line.

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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.

Level 5 drywall finish for Easton homes

About 63 percent of the city's homes were built before 1940, and most of their walls are not drywall at all but plaster on lath. Level 5 is a drywall standard, written for new board that has never been painted. On sound plaster the honest answer is repair and a skim coat, which gives an old wall the same even face for paint.

The finish comes into its own in two kinds of Easton rooms. One is the room where the plaster could not be saved and drywall replaced it, so the new walls have to hold their own beside plaster rooms that have carried paint for a century. The other is the newer house in the townships, where tall windows send low light across long runs of fresh board.

Easton

New board beside old plaster, from the West Ward to College Hill

The West Ward filled in between the 1880s and the 1910s, and about seven in ten of its homes predate 1940; College Hill's houses run from the 1830s to 1940. Many Victorian houses in both have window bays, and light coming through the side panes of a bay can cross the walls beside it at a low angle. When one of those walls is opened for wiring, a leak or a new kitchen and closed with drywall, the board ends up in a room of old plaster.

Two things have to match. Plaster on wood lath usually stands thicker than standard drywall, so the new board is shimmed out to sit just below the plaster's face and the joint is filled flush; otherwise the casings sit farther off one wall than the next. And bare compound and paper drink paint differently from plaster under generations of paint, so the new walls are skimmed edge to edge and primed, and the whole room takes the finish alike.

A tall two-story gray wall rising over an open kitchen, a painter at work at its base.
A two-story wall, finished.

Worth knowing

  1. Forks, Williams and Palmer

    About half of Forks Township's homes and more than four in ten of Williams Township's were built in 2000 or later. Where those houses have two-story rooms or long runs of windows, the walls are new board, exactly the case the standard was written for.

  2. Sound plaster gets a skim

    Where the plaster is still keyed to its lath, it is repaired and skimmed rather than replaced. In a city this old that is the more common answer, and it has its own name: skim coating.

  3. One new wall, three old ones

    A deep color will show any difference between a re-boarded wall and the plaster around it. Skimming all four walls keeps the room even under the same paint.

The work

How the work goes

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

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.

  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, Easton.

Our College Hill house still has its original plaster. Does it need Level 5?

Usually not. Level 5 is written for new drywall, and sound plaster is better repaired and skim coated, which gives it an equally even surface for paint. Level 5 comes in only where a wall has been rebuilt in drywall, and then the plaster beside it is often skimmed too.

Will a re-boarded wall look like the plaster next to it?

Under paint it can match in tone and sheen. It will be flatter than old plaster with a gentle wave in it, and it will not have plaster's hardness; the drywall standard itself says a skim coat won't approximate a plastered surface. Its job is narrower: to stop the joints and the paper from showing through the paint.

Do you work in the boroughs next to the city, like Wilson and West Easton?

Yes. Randy is based in Easton and serves the whole city and its neighbors: Wilson, West Easton and Glendon, where more than half the homes predate 1940, and the newer streets of Forks, Palmer and Williams townships.

More in Easton

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.