Riverton was laid out in 1851 by Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan for a group of ten Philadelphians, and it is often called one of the first fully planned residential subdivisions in the country. It began as a summer retreat on the Delaware, reached by steamboat, and was incorporated as a borough from part of Cinnaminson in 1893. It is less than a square mile, and nearly a third of that is water. The borough still has its sidewalks, gas lamps and Victorian houses, and the Riverton Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1999, includes 371 contributing buildings across about eighty acres. Out on its pier in the river stands the Stick-style clubhouse of the Riverton Yacht Club, founded in 1880. A free estimate here is mostly a conversation about what the house is and what it needs.
Victorian and early-twentieth-century houses have a lot of exterior detail: deep cornices, brackets, porch posts and spindles, wood windows, and clapboard or shingle walls carrying a century of paint. The houses nearest the river also get damp air off the Delaware. On houses like these, preparation is most of the job. We scrape back to sound paint, feather the edges so they don't show through, spot-prime bare wood with a primer that lets old wood breathe, and repair or replace rotted pieces instead of hiding them under caulk. We finish with premium Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams exterior systems, and we would rather keep an original profile than strip it to bare wood for a sharper first year.
Almost every house in Riverton predates the 1978 lead-paint ban, most of them by many decades, so lead-safe practices are simply how our jobs run here: containment under the work area, wet scraping instead of dry power-sanding, HEPA vacuum cleanup and a site cleaned every day. Old oil-based paint on trim and doors also needs a bonding primer before a modern waterborne finish, or the new coat will peel off the old one. Our article on lead paint in older New Jersey homes explains what testing and safe removal involve if you want to read up first.
Color takes real thought in a town this cohesive. A house in a historic streetscape is seen next to its neighbors, so our free color consultation looks at the block as well as the fan deck, and trim colors often do more of the work than body colors on these houses. Inside, we paint plaster walls and original woodwork, refinish wide-plank and oak floors, and refinish kitchen cabinets in houses where the kitchen was updated decades ago and is due again. We can also price a single room, such as a bedroom or a dining room, with the same prep standard as a whole house. NJ Painting Co. is family-owned, licensed and fully insured, with more than twenty years in the trade. Estimates are free and the work carries a two-year workmanship warranty.
