Old millwork is slow work, and worth it
A modern room has a simple baseboard, a flat casing and a smooth ceiling. You can cut it in quickly. A pre-war Sunderland farmhouse room has a tall molded base, casings with several changes of profile, and often a picture rail — every one of which has to be cut by hand and every one of which has probably been painted eight or ten times already.
That build-up is the real issue. Ten coats of paint on a molded profile gradually fill in the detail until the shape you paid for is a soft suggestion of itself. On the better rooms it is worth taking that back rather than adding an eleventh coat. That is patient work with heat and hand tools rather than anything aggressive, because the timber underneath is worth protecting.
The other thing height changes is access. Rooms with ten-foot ceilings need proper staging to cut a straight line where wall meets ceiling, and there is nowhere to hide a wavy cut in a room with that much natural light.
Profiles kept sharp
Where a molding has lost its shape under repeated coats, we take the build-up back rather than burying the detail further. It is slower and it is why the room looks right afterward.
Hand-cut lines
Old casings and rails are rarely straight or square. They are cut in by hand rather than taped, because tape follows the wall and the wall is a hundred years old.
Staging for height
Tall ceilings need a proper platform to cut cleanly at the line. A ladder shuffled along produces a line you will see from the doorway for years.
Sound before pretty
Loose plaster and open cracks get dealt with first. There is no point putting a careful finish onto a surface that is coming away behind it.
Painting plaster, not board
In the oldest Sunderland houses the walls behind that millwork are plaster rather than drywall, and it does not behave the same way. Plaster is thirsty and alkaline, so it drinks the first coat unevenly and does not take modern all-in-one paint-and-primer products well. It wants a proper primer chosen for the surface.
It also wants checking. Press a plaster wall firmly and listen — a hollow, drummy sound means the plaster has parted from the lath behind it and is being held up by habit. Paint will not fix that, and painting it first means doing the room twice. Those sections need re-securing before anything else happens.
Cracks are a similar story. A hairline crack skimmed over reappears within a season, because the movement that caused it has not gone anywhere. Opening it into a shallow V, filling it properly and spot-priming is the difference between a repair and a delay.
Big rooms, big houses, one room at a time
Sunderland houses run large — four and five bedrooms are the norm rather than the exception — and they sit on acreage where nobody is going anywhere while the work happens. Interior jobs here tend to be whole floors rather than single rooms.
We work through them one room at a time so the house stays usable, with furniture sealed rather than shifted out to a garage that may not exist. The heating and cooling gets shut down and the returns sealed before any sanding starts, which matters more in an old house than a new one — there is a lot of history in the ductwork of a place that has been redecorated every decade since the war.
Estimates are free and written. Dale Miller walks the rooms, tells you what the plaster is actually doing, and does the work himself. Call (443) 684-4101.
Sunderland questions we get asked
- Our trim has been painted so many times the detail has disappeared. Can that be recovered?
- Usually yes, and on good original millwork it is worth doing. Repeated coats gradually fill in a molded profile until the shape is lost. Taking that build-up back is careful, patient work rather than anything aggressive, because the timber underneath is the part worth keeping. We will tell you which rooms justify it and which are fine with a straightforward repaint.
- Why do the cracks in our plaster keep coming back after painting?
- Because filling a crack at the surface does not address it. A hairline crack needs opening into a shallow groove, filling properly and spot-priming before the finish coat. Skimmed over, it reappears with the next seasonal movement — which is why you can see the same crack in three successive decorations.
- Part of our wall sounds hollow when you knock it. Is that a problem?
- It can be. In plaster-and-lath walls a hollow or drummy sound means the plaster has separated from the lath behind and is no longer keyed to it. That section needs re-securing before it is painted, otherwise you are decorating a wall that is on its way off. It is worth knowing before the job starts, not after.
- How is this different from painting a newer Sunderland house?
- Almost entirely. A 1980s or 2000s house here has drywall, simple trim and standard ceiling heights — a clean, efficient job. The pre-war houses have plaster, elaborate millwork and tall rooms, and take considerably longer per square foot. Same town, two quite different jobs, which is why Dale looks at the house before pricing.
Full detail
More on Interior Painting
This page covers interior painter in Sunderland. For how the work actually runs — the order we do things in, what is included, and what it costs to put right — read the full interior painting page.
Interior PaintingInterior Painter in Sunderland, MD
Call Desler Painting and you will speak to Dale Miller, the owner, who comes out and looks at the job himself. Estimates are free and there is no obligation.