Interior Painting in Durham, NC
The bungalow belt around downtown Durham changes an interior job in a way most people do not expect. Nearly all of that housing predates 1978, which means the EPA's lead-safe rules apply to interior sanding and scraping exactly as they do to an exterior — contained rooms, no dry power sanding, HEPA cleanup at the end. Behind the paint the walls are plaster on lath, and the cracks come back for structural reasons rather than cosmetic ones. Out toward Southpoint and Woodcroft it is conventional drywall and none of this applies.
The lead rules apply indoors, and almost nobody expects that
Most people who have heard of the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule associate it with scraping the outside of an old house. It is not an exterior rule. It applies to disturbing painted surfaces anywhere in a home built before 1978, and in Durham's inner ring — Old West Durham, Watts-Hillandale, Trinity Park, Old North Durham, Duke Park — that describes most of the housing stock.
Inside a house it means the room becomes a contained work area: plastic across doorways, floor covering that is rolled up inward at the end so nothing is shaken loose, the HVAC shut down and the vents sealed. It rules out the things that make a painter's day easier — open-flame or high-temperature stripping, and dry power sanding without a shrouded vacuum. It ends with a HEPA vacuum and a wet clean rather than a broom. And it puts particular attention on the two places where lead dust actually concentrates in a lived-in house: window sashes and stools, and the edges of doors, because friction surfaces make dust every time somebody uses them, with no painter involved at all.
The consequence for you is simply that a bedroom in a 1922 Trinity Park bungalow does not cost what the same bedroom costs in a 2004 house out at Woodcroft, and the difference is hours rather than materials. It is also the most common invisible gap between two quotes on the same house. Ask anyone bidding your pre-1978 interior how they intend to handle sanding the trim, and listen to how readily the answer comes. The ordinary sequence is on interior painting; this sits on top of it rather than replacing it.
A crack in a bungalow is telling you about the house, not the wall
The crack pattern in these houses is consistent enough to be diagnostic. Lines run out from the upper corners of door and window openings at roughly forty-five degrees. There is often one along the join where an upstairs ceiling meets a wall, and a long horizontal one part-way up a stairwell wall, where the plaster spans the tallest unsupported run in the building.
That pattern is a house moving, not plaster failing on its own account. Most Durham bungalows sit on brick piers over a crawl space, framed in heart pine that takes up and gives off moisture with the seasons. The building lifts fractionally through a wet summer and settles through a dry heated winter, and rigid plaster takes that movement at its weakest point, which is the corner of an opening.
So a rigid filler in a moving crack is a temporary repair. It will open again, usually along the same line, generally within a year. The durable version is to rake the crack out, bridge it with mesh tape and a setting-type compound rather than a soft lightweight filler, and feather the join wide enough that it does not read across the wall. Even then we will say honestly that a crack above a door in a house of this age can return to some degree, because painting is not underpinning. What we will not do is fill it, coat it and leave you to find out next February.
The woodwork that has never been painted, and why we ask twice
Durham's bungalow belt has more surviving original interior woodwork than anywhere else we work. Quarter-sawn oak and heart-pine casings, picture rails, built-in bookcases either side of a chimney breast, panelled doors with their original hardware, all still under shellac or varnish rather than paint. In a good many of these houses it is the most valuable thing in the room.
We will paint it if that is what you want, and plenty of people reasonably do — dark woodwork in a small north-facing room is a genuine hardship to live with. But we will ask you twice first, and say plainly that it does not reverse. Once paint is down in the open pores of oak it does not come back out; stripping it later gives you a fuzzy, patchy surface that has to be painted anyway. It is the interior equivalent of painting brick that was never painted, and we treat it the same way.
If you do go ahead, the technical part matters more than usual. Old shellac and varnish need de-glossing and then a shellac-based primer rather than a general-purpose one, because the tannins in oak and heart pine and the old finish itself will bleed amber straight through waterborne paint — often not for a fortnight, so you will believe it has worked and then watch it go yellow in patches. Shellac blocks that reliably and very little else does. And a clear finish that has begun to alligator has to be flatted properly first, because that texture shows through paint precisely as it showed through varnish.
Interior Painting in Durham — common questions
Do lead rules really apply to interior painting?
Yes. The rule covers disturbing painted surfaces in any pre-1978 home, indoors as much as out. In practice it changes how the room is contained, how sanding is done and how the day ends, and those hours are real — which is why it is worth asking every bidder the same question.
The crack above our doorway keeps coming back. Can it be fixed for good?
It can be made much better and it is rarely made permanent. The honest version is to rake it out, bridge it with mesh and a setting compound rather than a soft filler, and accept that a house which moves seasonally may show a hairline again. Anyone promising it will never return has not worked on many bungalows.
Should we paint our original woodwork?
That is your call and we will do it well either way. What we insist on saying first is that it is one-way: stripping painted oak afterwards leaves a raised, patchy grain that has to be painted again regardless. If you are unsure, live with it through one more winter before deciding.
Why is the new white on our trim going yellow in patches?
Tannin or old varnish bleeding through the film. Oak and heart pine both do it, and a standard primer will not hold it back. That trim needs de-glossing and a shellac-based blocking primer under the finish coat, which is the one product that reliably stops it.
Interior Painting in other Triangle towns
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