House Painters in Philadelphia, PA

A typical Philadelphia rowhome was built between 1890 and 1930, which means plaster hung on wood lath and a solid masonry exterior. Both age in specific ways.

Inside, the plaster cracks over openings and along the ceiling line, and sections separate from the lath and start to move under hand pressure. Party walls, the ones you share with the neighbors, dry slowly and hold damp, so the plaster on those walls fails first. North-facing rooms are the same story.

Outside, brick and stone need to release moisture. Coat them with a standard exterior acrylic and the water that gets in through mortar joints or from behind has nowhere to go, so the paint comes off in sheets and takes brick face with it. South Philadelphia and Kensington are full of examples.

We repair plaster rather than skimming over failure, and we use breathable masonry coatings on brick and stone. That is the whole difference on a house this old.

If you own rental property in Philadelphia built before 1978, and most of the city's rowhomes are, you need a lead-safe or lead-free certification to sign or renew a lease and to obtain or renew a rental license. As of April 2022 that applies to every pre-1978 rental in the city regardless of whether children live there.

A lead-safe certification requires the unit to be free of deteriorated, flaking, chipping, peeling, or chalking paint. That is a paint condition, and it is fixable ahead of time rather than in a panic after a failed inspection with a lease date coming. We get units into condition and keep them there between tenants. See commercial and specialty coatings for how we run that work.

South Philadelphia and Point Breeze, where formstone and painted brick fronts are common and the interiors are original plaster. Fishtown and Kensington, where a lot of the work is investor renovations that need the wall repair done properly instead of skimmed over. Germantown and Mount Airy, with larger stone twins and singles that need masonry-appropriate coatings. West Philadelphia, with Victorian porch details and wood trim that has usually been painted a dozen times. Roxborough and Manayunk on the hills. And the Northeast, where the porch-front rows and postwar twins are newer and generally in better shape.

Anyone who has painted in this city knows the job starts with logistics. Narrow streets, permit parking, no driveway, and neighbors ten feet away on both sides.

We handle that the way you have to: staging materials in the house rather than on the sidewalk, keeping the work area contained, sealing rooms so sanding dust does not travel through an open floor plan, and being realistic with you about what can be done from a ladder versus what needs proper setup. Interior work in an occupied rowhome means we protect the path from the front door to the work area, because that is the only path there is.