Painting interior plaster and textured walls in older Riverside homes

Four or five layers of paint on a plaster wall is normal in a house built before 1950, and every layer changes what the next one will stick to. The figures kept at riverside interior painting sbrick store for interior painting in Riverside, CA begin with that count, because a scraped chip shows how many coats went on and what sits at the bottom. Homes around the Mission Inn and the older streets downtown are the usual cases.

Read the wall before touching it

Scrape a small patch and look at the layers. A glossy bottom coat usually means oil based paint, and a chalky one means old flat distemper that will dissolve under a wet roller. Rub a damp rag over the wall and see what comes off on it. Chalk on the rag means the surface needs a binding primer.

Lead era paint

Any house built before 1978 may carry lead paint in the lower layers. Test kits and lab swabs exist for exactly this, and sanding dry is the wrong move on an untested wall. Wet scraping, controlled dust and a proper vacuum are the standard method, and many older Riverside houses have been repainted so often that the old layers are buried deep.

Cracks in plaster move differently

Plaster cracks follow the framing and the foundation. A crack that has opened and closed for years needs its edges cut into a V, filled with setting compound and covered with fabric tape before skim coating. Plain spackle pushed into it will return within a season. Patching hard plaster also needs a bonding agent where the new material meets the old.

Texture and the roller nap

Orange peel, knockdown and old hand troweled finishes all take paint differently. A thicker nap, around three quarters of an inch, pushes paint into the valleys of a heavy texture. A smooth wall wants a short nap. Using the wrong one leaves pinholes on rough walls and a stippled surface on smooth ones.

Primer choice

Oil based primer sticks to glossy old enamel and seals stains, though it smells strong and needs good ventilation. A bonding latex primer works on most sound old paint after a scuff sand and cleaning. Whatever the primer, test a small area and press tape on it after a day, to see whether it lifts.

Once the surface is sealed, two coats of acrylic latex in eggshell or satin over a coat of primer cover cleanly, and the walls look like new work instead of repainted old ones.