Hillsborough covers about fifty-five square miles, more than any other municipality in Somerset County, and roughly a third of it is preserved open space. The township was chartered in 1771. For most of its history it was farmland and small villages such as Belle Mead, Flagtown, Neshanic, South Branch and Blackwells Mills, many of which still have their old houses at the crossroads. Then the suburbs arrived. About seventy-five hundred people lived here in 1960, and more than forty-three thousand did by 2020. Sourland Mountain rises along the southern edge, Duke Farms covers about 2,700 acres along the Raritan, and most of the township between them is subdivisions from the 1970s onward. When you look for house painters in Hillsborough, that is the range of houses involved, and our free estimate starts with which kind you have.
Most Hillsborough homes are two-story colonials and contemporaries from the 1970s through the 2000s, on bigger lots than in older towns. The exterior work is mostly at height and in volume: long runs of vinyl or fiber-cement siding, high gable ends, painted wood or composite trim around the windows, and detached garages or barns on the larger properties. Vinyl needs a vinyl-safe color or it can warp in summer sun. Fiber-cement holds paint well but needs its cut ends sealed. Wood trim on the older homes is usually where the rot and peeling begin. We bring proper ladders and staging, prep each material for what it is, and finish with premium Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams exterior systems.
Shade is the other local problem. Homes near the Sourland woods and along the Millstone and Raritan rivers sit under mature trees, and north walls there stay damp long enough to grow mildew and soften wood. We wash and treat mildew before priming rather than painting over it, replace soft trim instead of caulking it, and use mildew-resistant finishes on the shaded walls. The older farmhouses in the villages predate 1978 by generations, and we work on them with lead-safe practices: containment, wet scraping, HEPA cleanup and a site cleaned every day.
Inside, the typical Hillsborough house from the 1980s or 90s has a two-story foyer, an open family room, builder-flat paint on every wall, and a kitchen of honey oak cabinets. We have the staging for tall foyers and stairwells, repaint in scrubbable premium finishes, and refinish oak cabinets to a smooth, modern painted finish for a fraction of what replacement costs. Grain filling and the right primer keep the oak texture from showing through. We also refinish hardwood and coat two- and three-car garages in epoxy. NJ Painting Co. is family-owned, licensed and fully insured, with more than twenty years in the trade. Every Hillsborough estimate is free, includes a color consultation, and the work carries a two-year workmanship warranty.
