In Red Bank, Fair Haven, Rumson, Little Silver, Oceanport, Deal and Avon-by-the-Sea, a large share of the interiors we paint still have their original plaster. Sound plaster takes paint beautifully, better than drywall in some ways, because it is hard and dense and does not flash the way joint compound does. What it does not forgive is movement. Hairline cracks over doorways and along ceiling lines are normal in a house that has settled for a century, and we fill and sand the fine ones as part of normal wall prep. Loose, bulging or detached plaster is a different matter: plaster repair is not a service we offer, so a wall in that condition needs a plasterer before our interior painters can do anything useful with it, and we will tell you which walls those are.
The trim in those houses is where the hours go. Decades of oil enamel on baseboards, casings, doors and stair parts will not hold a modern waterborne finish unless it is cleaned, deglossed and primed with a bonding primer first, and paint that has already started to alligator or chip has to be dealt with before anything is laid over it. That is slow, careful work, and it is honest to price it as such rather than as a quick refresh.
Inland, in Marlboro, Morganville, Holmdel, Colts Neck, Freehold, Howell, Wall Township and Tinton Falls, the walls are almost all drywall and the problems are the ones drywall has: nail pops along ceiling seams, dents and gouges at stair landings, tape joints that show under a strong side light, and patches from a previous owner that flash through a single coat. Drywall and sheetrock repair is part of what we do before painting, so those are fixed, sanded and primed as part of the job rather than painted over. Bayshore houses in Keyport, Hazlet, Aberdeen, Matawan, Middletown and New Monmouth sit somewhere between the two, with mid-century drywall, the occasional plaster ceiling, and a good deal of wallpaper that someone has already painted over once.
