House Painters in Princeton, NJ

Princeton is a Mercer County municipality with one main ZIP code, 08540, which covers almost all of its land; 08542 and 08544 cover small pieces in and around the university. Today's Princeton was created on January 1, 2013, when Princeton Borough and Princeton Township consolidated. The borough had become a separate municipality in 1894, and the township dated to 1838, the year Mercer County was formed. The College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, moved here from Newark in 1756, and Nassau Hall briefly served as the national capitol in 1783.

Princeton's housing is old by Mercer County standards. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020 to 2024 counts about 9,900 homes and dates 23 percent of them to 1939 or earlier, 14 percent to the 1950s and 12 percent to the 1960s. In all, 64 percent were built before 1980. Building has not stopped, though: about one home in ten dates from the 2010s.

Much of that older housing sits inside local historic districts. Princeton Council approved the Witherspoon-Jackson Historic District in April 2016, by a 5-0 vote, which a local news report said brought the town to 20 districts, and Council adopted a Prospect Avenue district in 2022. Applications in the districts go first to the municipal Historic Preservation Officer, who reports to the Historic Preservation Commission. We could not confirm from a primary source whether a change of paint color alone needs the commission's approval, so if your house is in a district, ask the Historic Preservation Office before you change colors, replace siding or strip trim, and before the job is booked.

On older Princeton houses the prep is the job. Original clapboard, window sash and porch trim are scraped back to sound paint, bare wood is primed, and failed caulk comes out before premium Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams finish coats go on. Inside, deep casings, raised-panel doors and staircases are brushed by hand. Most of these houses predate 1978, and that brings in a federal rule. Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, a firm paid to disturb more than six square feet of paint in a room, or more than twenty square feet outside, on pre-1978 housing has to be EPA-certified. NJ Painting Co. is not EPA Lead-Safe Certified, so for Princeton work that goes past those limits you will need a certified contractor, and we will tell you so when we look at the house.

NJ Painting Co. is a family-owned company based in Morganville in Monmouth County. Every Princeton estimate is free and written, whether the house is a pre-war home in a district or one built in the last ten years.

More on interior painting in Princeton.