About Lemuriapop

A Painting Crew That Learned Plaster First

Lemuriapop paints houses in Pasadena, and we ended up specializing in old wall surfaces because that is what this city is built out of. We work out of Green St in the 91106 ZIP, and on most weeks at least half the crew is inside a house that went up before drywall was a product anyone could buy.

The distinction sounds like a technicality until you have paid for it twice. Plaster and drywall are not two versions of the same wall. One is a three coat wet trade applied over wood lath, hard and brittle and about seven eighths of an inch thick. The other is a manufactured board, half an inch, screwed on and taped. They crack differently, they fail differently, they take fillers differently and they need different primers. A crew that only knows board will do the board thing to your plaster, and it will look fine on the day.

What We Actually Do Differently

We survey before we price. That means working along each wall with a raking light and a knuckle, listening for the hollow note that says the keys behind the lath have let go. Hollow areas get plaster washers and screws to pull the field back tight, or they get cut out to a sound edge if there is nothing left to fasten to. Cracks that run off a door or window corner get opened, taped and built in coats of setting compound rather than packed with a lightweight filler that will shrink away from them.

Then there is the texture. These walls were finished by hand with a trowel and a float, so a hopper gun and a knockdown blade will never match them. We match sand float and skip trowel by hand, let it dry properly, and look at it again in the afternoon light before anyone opens a can of paint.

The Local Conditions We Work Around

Pasadena summers are hot and dry, and Santa Ana winds coming down off the San Gabriels pull moisture out of a patch faster than it can cure. That is a real scheduling constraint, not a talking point. We slow coats down in a wind week and let compound harden through rather than sanding it on the day we planned to.

Outside, the same sun that makes the light so good here fades a south or west elevation years ahead of the shaded sides, and the deep overhangs on a Craftsman protect the wall directly under them while leaving the gable ends exposed. We quote elevations separately when that is the honest thing to do, because repainting four sides when two of them are sound is money you did not need to spend.

What We Will Tell You Not To Bother With

A hairline crack that has sat still for a decade in a spare bedroom usually needs filler and nothing else. A ceiling with a sound coating on it does not need to be stripped because a salesman said so. And if your walls turn out to be board in good condition, we will tell you that too, and the number will drop accordingly.

Call (626) 974-4505.