Interior & Exterior Painting in Garner, NC

The panelling job

Garner has a large stock of 1960s to 1980s ranches and split-levels, and a good share of them still have original dark sheet panelling on at least one wall — a den, a family room, the lower level of a split-level.

Painting it is one of the highest-value things you can do to a house of that age. A room that reads as dated because of one dark wall stops reading that way in two days.

It also fails more often than almost any other interior painting job, and always for the same reason.

Why paint does not stick to it

That panelling has a factory face. Depending on the product it may be a printed photographic finish, a thin laminate, or a sealed and coated veneer. Whatever it is, it was engineered to resist marking, moisture and wear.

Which means it also resists paint. Ordinary emulsion applied straight onto it forms a film that sits on the surface rather than bonding into it, and sooner or later — often months later, which is the cruel part — it peels off in sheets.

What actually works

Clean it properly. Decades of surface residue, and in a den frequently smoke and cooking film. Degreasing is not optional; primer will not bond through it either.

Dull the surface. Scuff sanding or a liquid deglosser, to give the primer something mechanical to hold onto.

Bonding primer. Not a general-purpose one. A primer specifically formulated to adhere to glossy and non-porous surfaces.

Then paint. Once it is primed properly, ordinary paint behaves normally.

The grooves

The other thing nobody costs correctly is the grooves.

Panelling has vertical grooves at regular spacing, and they cannot be rolled — they have to be cut in with a brush, usually twice, before the flat areas are rolled. On a full wall that is a lot of linear metres.

Filling them to get a flat wall is possible and it is a considerably bigger job. Every groove filled, sanded and usually skimmed across the whole wall, and any subsequent movement in the panels shows as a line through the finish. It is a real option and it should be priced as what it is rather than as a variation on painting.

Painted with the grooves left in, panelling reads as vertical board and looks like a decision rather than a leftover.

Popcorn ceilings

The other Garner staple, and the other job that goes wrong through impatience.

If a sprayed texture ceiling has never been painted, the texture is unsealed and porous. Roll wet paint onto it and it soaks the water straight out of the film, softens, and comes away — leaving a bald patch and a roller full of texture.

It has to be sealed first. A sealing coat stabilises the texture and stops it absorbing.

Then applied properly. A thick-nap roller to get into the profile, worked in one direction, without going back over an area that is still wet. Going back over it is what lifts texture even on a sealed ceiling.

Spraying avoids the problem entirely and brings its own masking requirements. Which is better depends on the room and on how much furniture there is.

And a caution that belongs here: if the texture predates the early 1980s and you are thinking of removing rather than painting it, it should be tested first, because ceiling texture of that era can contain asbestos. Painting it is not disturbing it. Scraping it is.

Interiors generally

Beyond those two, Garner houses bring the usual list of their age: doors that have been painted enough times that the hardware is buried, trim profiles that are worth repairing rather than replacing, and settlement cracks that can be repaired permanently because the house has finished moving.

Repairs happen before paint, always. Paint fills nothing.

Exteriors

The older Garner houses have wood or hardboard siding with several coats of history on it, and the failing layer is not always the top one. Anything lifting comes back to a sound edge and gets feathered.

The newer south side, along the corridors toward Cleveland and Clayton, is recent construction on its first cycle — mostly a question of doing the caulk joints properly while the rest is still in good order.

Scheduling is weather-led rather than calendar-led. Mid-summer afternoon sun on a wall is the worst condition, because a film that dries too fast will not level or cure.

Getting a price

For panelling, photograph the wall and a close-up of the surface at an angle so we can see whether it is printed, laminated or veneer. For a ceiling, tell us whether it has ever been painted before.

For an exterior, each elevation from far enough back to see the whole side, plus a close-up of any failing paint.

Garner is about half an hour from us, in the same bracket as most of our list.