Interior Painting serving Raynham and Metro West MA.

The Census Bureau puts the median construction year of Raynham's housing at 1986. That midpoint hides a split that matters indoors: 42.3% of the town's 6,229 housing units went up before 1980, while 57.7% date from 1980 or later. A bedroom in a 1968 house and a bedroom in a 2004 house can need very different prep before a single coat goes on.

In an older house, the first question is what is already on the walls and trim, so that is where the plan starts.

Older rooms and lead dust

Federal rules treat 1978 as the line. Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, anyone paid to disturb paint in housing built before then must be certified in lead-safe work practices. In Raynham, the 1970s alone account for 968 housing units in the Census count, the 1960s for 572 and the 1950s for 401.

Indoors, the risk is dust. Sanding a window sash, scraping a stair stringer or opening up a door jamb can release fine particles that settle into carpet and floor cracks. Lead-safe interior prep means plastic sheeting sealed to the floor, misting before scraping, HEPA vacuums and a wet cleanup that is checked before the room is handed back. Our lead-safe painting page explains each step and what certification covers.

• Test painted trim, sashes and doors in pre-1978 rooms before sanding
• Contain the work area and keep children and pets out until cleanup
• Use HEPA vacuums and wet wiping, never dry sweeping
• Keep a record of the test results for future work on the house

Plaster versus drywall

Raynham has 508 housing units built in 1939 or earlier, about 8.2% of the total. Houses of that age can have plaster walls on wood or metal lath, and plaster behaves differently from gypsum board. Hairline cracks reopen if they are only filled with spackle; the fix is mesh tape or a bonding compound. Loose plaster that pulls away from the lath needs to be reattached with plaster washers before any paint goes on.

Newer rooms are generally drywall. The common problems there are nail pops, taped seams that show through flat paint, and corner bead dents. A 1990s or 2000s house may also still have the builder's original flat white on the walls, which scrubs poorly and often needs a primer coat when the color change is large.

Ceilings and trim

Ceilings are where water stains from a roof or bathroom leak show first. A stain-blocking primer keeps a brown ring from bleeding back through the new white. If the stain came from an ice dam, our post on ceiling stains after an ice dam leak covers what to fix before repainting. Textured or popcorn ceilings in houses built before the 1980s can contain asbestos and should be tested before they are scraped or sanded.

Trim tells you a lot about the paint history. Glossy trim with brush marks under it may be an oil-based coat; latex applied straight over oil can peel off in sheets. A deglosser or light sanding with a bonding primer solves that. Our paint finish comparison helps pick the sheen for walls, trim and doors.

Apartments and attached units

Not every Raynham home is a single-family house: 67.9% of units are single-family detached, and 20.1% sit in buildings with five or more units. In a unit, interior painting usually happens around neighbors, with shared hallways and parking to plan for. A lease or association rule may also limit colors or work hours, so check before choosing paint. Winter works well for interior projects; see painting with the windows closed for how ventilation is handled.