Painting Madison homes, from old plaster to new drywall

What we do in Madison

• Refinishing cabinets in an old Madison kitchen, layers and all

  For kitchens varnished, painted and patched by a string of owners. It shows how George reads the layers on an old door, what lead means for sanding, whether a china cabinet or butler's pantry should match the kitchen, and when original stained wood is better left alone.

• Painting plaster walls and old woodwork in Madison homes

  Written for rooms with plaster walls and deep trim: three quick ways to tell plaster from drywall, which cracks get filled and which need a plasterer first, picture rails and radiators, and wall colors that sit well beside woodwork still wearing its first stain.

• Painting doors and trim on Madison's historic and older houses

  Front doors, porch railings, trim and decks on older houses, including those in the five local historic districts. It explains what the Landmarks Commission reviews, why old exterior paint peels, and the lead-safe prep an older outside needs.

Madison homes at a glance

Village in 1846, city in 1856, still building

Named for President James Madison, the settlement became a village in 1846 with 626 residents and a city ten years later with 6,863. It's now the second most populous city in Wisconsin, its downtown set on the isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, with more than 120 officially recognized neighborhood associations.

The Census estimates show how steadily the building has continued. The median home dates to 1980, which puts half the city on each side of that year. About 13% of homes went up before 1940, about 21% between 1980 and 1999, and close to 29% since 2000, so a painter here can start the week in a house with wood lath behind its walls and finish it in one where the drywall has hardly been touched.

What the build year changes before any paint goes on

Plaster covered the walls of nearly every building until the 1930s or 1940s, according to the National Park Service, and trim from those years has usually been painted again and again, with oil-based coats near the bottom. Sound plaster takes paint well once its hairline cracks are filled. Old oil trim is the slower part: it gets cleaned, scuff sanded and given a bonding primer, or new water-based paint can let go of it. Our page on plaster walls and old woodwork in Madison goes through both.

Kitchens tell the same story in layers of varnish and enamel on the cabinet doors, which is where refinishing an old Madison kitchen begins. Older living rooms often center on a brick fireplace too, and our guide to painting a brick fireplace covers the prep and the parts to leave bare.

Anything built before 1978 may also hide lead-based paint under newer coats, so give us the year when you call. Houses from the last two or three decades, close to three in ten here, mostly have drywall, builder paint and plain trim. Their prep is lighter, and the conversation tends to be about color rather than repair.

Upper flats, condos and rentals

In Madison the owner lives in 46% of homes, and about 40% are detached houses on their own lots. The rest of the housing is duplexes, flats, condos and apartment buildings, many of them rented. None of that changes how a wall gets painted. It changes the planning around it:

• Who decides. A renter needs the owner's go-ahead before anything is booked, and in a two-unit house the owner may want both flats done in one visit.
• How we get in. An upper flat often means a long stair or a back entrance, so tell us how the unit is reached and how big the rooms are.
• Who lives next to the work. Neighbors upstairs or down share the entry and will hear the prep, so a note to them a few days ahead goes a long way.
• Why you're painting. If it's for a listing or a new lease, our post on whether painting adds value is honest about what fresh paint can and can't promise.

Mansion Hill to First Settlement: the five districts

Madison designated its local historic districts over 26 years: Mansion Hill in 1976, Third Lake Ridge in 1979, University Heights in 1985, Marquette Bungalows in 1993 and First Settlement in 2002. For properties inside them, the city says its Landmarks Commission reviews every exterior change.

For a painting job, that matters more for the calendar than for the brushwork. A new color on a front door, a porch or the trim is worth raising with the city's preservation staff before you pick dates, since the city's page doesn't list which kinds of exterior work need review. Doors and trim on Madison's historic and older houses explains the application and the prep in detail.

Booking around four Madison seasons

Madison has a humid continental climate. The thermometer drops to zero or below on about 17 mornings a year, roughly 52 inches of snow falls in an average winter, and summer brings the larger share of the rain. Stain and exterior paint need clean, dry wood and a dry spell afterward, so outdoor work is set by the forecast, and a wet week can push a start date back.

Indoor work doesn't wait on the sky, which makes the cold months a good time for a kitchen or a few rooms and saves the drier weeks for doors, trim and decks. In a historic district, settle any outside change with the city first and choose the week afterward. When you know what you'd like done, ask for a free estimate.

Other towns we serve

• Waunakee
• Middleton
• Verona
• Fitchburg
• Sun Prairie
• DeForest
• Windsor
• McFarland
• Monona
• Cross Plains
• Dane

Helpful guides

• Does painting add value to a home? An honest answer
• Painting a brick fireplace: prep, prime and what not to paint
• The questions that tell you whether a painter is worth hiring