Norfolk
Painters for Lochhaven
Period-revival houses from the 1920s and 1930s, where the trim detail is the whole reason the house looks the way it does.
Lochhaven is one of Norfolk’s established neighborhoods, laid out in the 1920s near the Lafayette River, on large lots under old oaks. The houses are period revival: Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival and Georgian, mostly brick, with slate or tile roofs and a great deal of original wood.
Houses like this are not difficult to paint. They are difficult to paint without damaging what makes them worth painting.
A hundred years of paint layers
Original wood windows, deep casings, dentil molding, cornice returns, porch columns and shutters on a 1928 house have been painted many times. Some layers are oil, some latex, and the earliest are brittle.
Where the layers are sound, the surface needs sanding and cleaning and nothing more. Where they are lifting, they have to come off, and the edges have to be feathered so the transition does not telegraph through the finish as a visible ridge. A new coat over a failing layer fails at the speed of the layer beneath it.
The other real risk on a house like this is detail loss. Muntins, dentils and bead detail fill in a little with every thick coat. Fifteen coats later the profile is a lump. Sanding back before recoating is how the detail survives, and it takes time nobody sees on the invoice.
Tudor half-timbering and mixed materials
Tudor Revival houses put stucco, applied timber, brick and slate on the same elevation, sometimes on the same wall. Each of those wants different preparation and different coatings, and the joints between them are exactly where water gets in.
The timber elements are usually the parts that have gone worst, because they are the most exposed and the easiest to caulk badly. They get treated as woodwork rather than as decoration.
Interiors: plaster, and rooms with real millwork
These houses have plaster walls, not drywall. Hairline cracks that are only skimmed over reopen through the new paint within a season, so they get opened up and filled properly. Chalky old plaster needs a sealing primer or a topcoat will not hold on it.
The millwork is the other half of the job: picture rails, paneled doors, deep baseboards, stair balustrades and built-ins. Doors of this age are usually worth finishing properly rather than rolling, and the difference is obvious the first time you open one.
Straight answer
The part everybody underestimates
On a period house the preparation is not a percentage of the job. It is most of the job. Scraping, feathering, spot-priming, filling and sanding a 1920s exterior can take longer than applying both coats put together.
A bid that comes in noticeably low on a house like this is not a better deal. It is a bid that has priced the painting and not the preparation, and it is the reason so many of these houses are carrying a bad layer under an otherwise decent one.
Lochhaven questions
Painting in Lochhaven, answered
Can old wood windows be saved rather than replaced?
Usually the paint is the problem, not the window. Original sashes in these houses are often better timber than anything sold today. Scraping back the failed layers, priming the bare wood and finishing properly is what keeps them serviceable.
Why is the trim detail on my house looking soft?
Every thick coat fills in a little more of the profile. After enough of them a dentil or a muntin becomes a lump. Sanding back before recoating is what keeps the detail readable, and it is a real part of the labor on a period house.
Do you paint plaster walls?
Yes. Cracks get opened and filled rather than skimmed, because a skimmed hairline crack reopens through the new paint. Chalky plaster gets a sealing primer before color.
Get a Lochhaven estimate
Pick a time that suits you, or tell him about the project and he will call you back. Either way he comes out, looks at what is actually there, writes down what he would do, and gives you a number.