House Painters in Old Bridge, NJ

Old Bridge is a Middlesex County township of about 38 square miles of land that reaches Raritan Bay at Laurence Harbor. It was incorporated in 1869 as Madison Township, from part of South Amboy Township, and voted in 1975 to call itself Old Bridge, mainly to end confusion with the borough of Madison in Morris County. Its communities include Laurence Harbor, Madison Park, Brownville, Cheesequake, Browntown, Matchaponix and South Old Bridge. About 62 percent of its land is in ZIP code 08857, with smaller parts in 07747 and 08879. One point of confusion remains: the National Register's Old Bridge Historic District is not in this township at all, but in the old village on the South River in neighboring East Brunswick.

Most Old Bridge houses are post-war. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020 to 2024 counts about 26,800 homes in the township. The 1960s were the busiest decade, with 22 percent, followed by the 1950s at 18 percent and the 1980s at 17 percent. In all, 59 percent were built before 1980, and only 5 percent before 1940.

The older township survives in a few buildings. Cedar Grove School, built in 1885, has been on the National Register since 1976, and since 1964 it has housed the Thomas Warne Museum, run by the Madison-Old Bridge Township Historical Society. The township code sets up a nine-member Historic Preservation Commission that keeps an Official Local Register of Historic Places. Once the Township Council designates a site, alterations that would materially change its character, and any demolition, need the commission's prior approval. Warne's Store and the Elmer Warne House on Route 516 are among the designated sites. A house that is not on the register needs no commission review for paint, though in condominium and townhouse communities the association may set exterior colors.

For painting, that means two kinds of house. Ranches and split-levels from the 1950s and 1960s have usually been repainted many times, so exterior work starts with scraping loose paint, priming bare wood and replacing failed caulk around windows and trim. Near the bay at Laurence Harbor, wind and damp air reach the siding first, and those walls need checking for mildew and lifting paint before any finish coat. Houses from the 1980s on are more often interior jobs: walls, stairwells and trim on their second or third repaint, and kitchen cabinets refinished instead of replaced, all in premium Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams products. With 59 percent of homes built before 1980, the federal lead rule comes up often. Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, a paid contractor who disturbs more than six square feet of paint in a room, or more than twenty square feet outside, on a pre-1978 home must be EPA-certified. NJ Painting Co. is not EPA Lead-Safe Certified, and where an Old Bridge house needs more than that, we say so up front and point you to a certified firm.

Old Bridge borders Monmouth County, and NJ Painting Co. is a family-owned company based in Morganville, on the Monmouth side. Every Old Bridge estimate is free.