Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Newtown, Bucks County

Plaster repair in Newtown, PA.

More than half of Newtown Borough's homes predate 1940, and their plaster takes shapes a flat repair won't suit: curved turret rooms, sloped ceilings under Gothic gables, stone walls one room deep.

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A painter preparing a rotunda of arched French doors, with ladders up and drop cloths laid over the floor.
A rotunda of French doors, mid-preparation.

Plaster repair for Newtown homes

The borough is small and old: of its roughly 960 homes, more than half were built before 1940, when plaster was the usual wall. The township that surrounds it is the reverse, with about three homes in a hundred that old and four in five built since 1980, so plaster repair in Newtown mostly means the borough, plus the township's handful of older houses.

The borough's older houses also put plaster in shapes a flat-wall repair does not suit. Plaster could be run on curves as readily as on flat walls, and the Queen Anne and Gothic Revival houses of the district's later extensions made use of that: round turrets, steep roofs and arched windows mean curved walls, sloped ceilings and arched reveals inside. A patch in those rooms has to keep the shape, one more reason to repair rather than replace.

Newtown

Turret rooms, Gothic gables and stone one room deep

In the district's two 1986 extensions, about three-quarters of the buildings are frame, mostly Queen Anne and Gothic Revival. Round three-story turrets on North Lincoln Avenue enclose curved rooms, and the steep roofs and cross gables of the Gothic houses leave upper rooms with sloping plaster ceilings. Those upper surfaces usually show a roof leak first, at valleys and around dormers, and a repair there has to keep the curve or slope true.

The older borough is built differently. On the Sycamore Street edge of the district, the typical house is two and a half stories and one room deep, and the stone ones mostly predate 1850, so a room often has stone outside walls on two sides with plaster laid against them. Damp moving through that stone, up from the ground or in at a failed joint, shows as stains and loose paint low on the wall and around the windows.

A room in an older house with patched, stained plaster walls and a radiator cover under the window.
Plaster walls, patched and stained, before the work.

Worth knowing

  1. Trace stains to the roof

    Under steep Gothic roofs, a stain near a dormer or where two gables meet is followed to its source on the roof before any plaster is touched.

  2. High ceilings first

    In the tall rooms of the Washington Avenue Victorians, a ceiling that dips has lost its grip on the lath and won't stop on its own, so it comes ahead of cosmetic work on the walls.

  3. What the review board sees

    The borough's HARB does not review interior changes or exterior replacements in kind. Swapping siding or trim for a different material is reviewed.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to plaster repair.

A white coffered ceiling with carved corbels above an arched window, a scaffold still standing below.
Coffers and corbels over an arched window.

  1. Find the cause

    Every repair starts with why the plaster failed: a leak, a settling corner, a ceiling carrying too much. Randy walks the rooms with you, and the walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.

  2. Reattach what’s loose

    Plaster that has lost its keys but is otherwise sound can be drawn back to the lath with screws and broad plaster washers. It doesn’t have to come down.

  3. Bridge the cracks

    Cracks are opened slightly, bridged with fiberglass mesh tape and filled with setting-type compound, which hardens by chemical reaction and shrinks less than ordinary joint compound. A finer compound goes on last, because setting compound is hard to sand.

  4. Rebuild what’s missing

    Where plaster is gone down to the lath, the old edges get a bonding agent and the hole is built back up in layers, each stepped over the last. Larger openings can take a piece of board shimmed to the plaster’s thickness instead.

  5. Finish to the wall around it

    The repair is feathered into the old surface, or the whole wall is skimmed so old and new read as one. On a wavy old wall, the patch follows the wall’s contour; a dead-flat patch would stand out.

Questions

Plaster repair, Newtown.

Our early stone house in the borough has damp patches low on its walls. Should the plaster be sealed?

No. A sealer or waterproof coating on plaster over damp stone traps the moisture behind it, and the plaster goes on deteriorating out of sight. The source has to be found, whether ground moisture, a failed joint or a gutter, and the wall left to dry before the plaster is repaired.

The plaster in our turret room is cracked along the curve. Can it be repaired without flattening it?

Yes. Cracks are bridged and filled, and any rebuilt area is shaped to the curve of the wall rather than to a straightedge, then blended into the plaster around it. Repairing the part that failed is a far smaller job than replacing a curved wall.

Our township house is from the 1990s. Does any of this apply?

Not the plaster part. Newtown Township's homes are overwhelmingly from 1980 on and built with drywall, so cracks, nail pops and patches there are drywall repairs. The exceptions are the township's few prewar houses, which are plaster like the borough's.

More in Newtown

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. 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.