Easton, Northampton County
Skim coating in Easton, PA.
Nearly two in three Easton homes predate 1940, and their plaster carries every repair since. A skim coat turns a wall of patches back into one surface without tearing anything out.
Skim coating for Easton homes
Old plaster rarely fails all at once. It collects: a filled crack over a door, a square where an outlet moved, the outline of a long-gone radiator bracket, each repair sound on its own and each a little different in height and grain. Rooms in the city's older houses have had a century or more to collect them, and in side light they read as a map.
Spot-patching one more crack only adds one more edge. A skim coat goes over the whole wall instead, so the old repairs, the new ones and the plaster between them end up under one thin layer of compound, and the paint sees a single surface. The plaster stays, and so do the casings and baseboards fitted to it.
Easton
West Ward row homes and College Hill plaster
By the latest Census estimate, 63 percent of the city's homes were built before 1940, and row homes and twins are its most common houses. The West Ward was built out from the 1880s into the 1910s, large houses first and then rows for middle-class families, and about seven in ten of its homes are prewar. Behind those facades the plaster has usually been cut for wiring, patched around replaced windows and papered and stripped more than once.
College Hill's houses run from the 1830s to 1940, including a cluster of early-1900s catalog designs in its northwest corner, built mainly by the Speer Lumber Company. Nearly all of them are plaster on lath. Past the city line the houses change: about half of Forks Township's homes date from 2000 on, and there a skim coat is the answer only for walls that were scarred, heavily patched or stripped along the way.
Worth knowing
Loose plaster is fastened first
Plaster that has let go of its lath can be drawn back with screws and plaster washers. The washers then disappear under the skim along with the cracks around them.
Shared walls can move
A crack that keeps returning along a row home's party wall is opened and bridged with mesh tape in setting compound before any skim goes over it.
Ask about the whole room
One skimmed wall beside three old ones can make the others look worse under the same paint. The walkthrough is the time to decide which walls, and whether the ceiling joins them.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to skim coating.
Walkthrough and estimate
Randy walks the rooms with you, looks at how sound the plaster and old paint are, and explains what each wall needs. The walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.
Repairs first
Loose plaster is reattached, cracks are opened and bridged with mesh tape, and deep holes are filled with setting-type compound, which shrinks less than ordinary joint compound. A skim over an unsound wall only hides the problem for a while.
Clean, dull, seal
Walls are washed and glossy paint is dulled so the compound can grip. Torn paper facing and leftover wallpaper paste are sealed with an oil- or shellac-based primer, because water in the compound would make them bubble.
Thin coats, edge to edge
Compound is spread over the whole wall and wiped back tight, then left to dry hard before the next pass. Thin coats, never one heavy one: thick compound shrinks and cracks as it dries.
Sand, prime, paint
The dry wall is sanded smooth and cleaned of dust. Primer evens out how the surface absorbs, so the paint dries to the same sheen everywhere.
Questions
Skim coating, Easton.
Our West Ward row home has walls patched by every owner before us. Skim coat or new drywall?
On plaster that is still sound, a skim coat. Tearing out means new board, new corners and resetting trim that has been in place for a century, while skimming keeps all of it. Any section that has crumbled or been soaked is cut out and filled first, and the skim then runs over old and new together.
A ceiling in our old Easton house leaves a chalky film on a damp cloth. Can it be skimmed?
Not as it is. A chalky coat that wipes off with water may be calcimine, an old water-based ceiling paint that new coatings grip poorly. It is washed off or sealed with an oil-based primer first; after that, the ceiling can be skimmed and painted like any other.
We live in Forks Township. Is skim coating for houses like ours?
Sometimes, though less often than in the city. A newer house with a few dings needs patching and paint, not a skim. Skimming makes sense where a wall carries dozens of filled holes, the scars of a removed fixture, or damage left when a wallpaper border or paneling came off.
More in Easton
Other services here.
- Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
- 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.
- 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.