Flaking Facade on Brownstone
Our brownstone is currently painted with brownstone colored paint – we bought it this way. I know the proper thing to do is to do the full stucco restoration, but I was hoping to wait a couple of years for this expense. What should I do in the meantime about this flaking paint? Can I…
Our brownstone is currently painted with brownstone colored paint – we bought it this way. I know the proper thing to do is to do the full stucco restoration, but I was hoping to wait a couple of years for this expense. What should I do in the meantime about this flaking paint? Can I scrape and repaint? Anyone have experience doing this? How long can I expect it to last? What would it cost? Is it feasible to DIY? And yes, we are on a landmark block… Thanks in advance!
If you dont want to spend for resurfacing than its better to paint.need to be scrapped very well,prime touch up and repaint.If you need to hire any contractor with license and insurance to do the work please call us to get an estimate.
M.Hamid Construction CO.
718-633-1500
OP here… yes, the facade is generally in good shape, but there is some funny cement texturing work in a few places that suggests some problems might be lurking under the paint. I think we’ll scrape the flaking paint, see how bad it looks with that patchiness, and if it looks bad consult Pintchek about what paint to touch up the bare patches with. Then in 2 years or so, do the right thing. Thanks all!
Minard, a neighbor had a painted facade when the neighborhood was landmarked. He was a masonery contractor, and at some point he re-did the facade with stucco. Being an old-timer I guess he didn’t get it approved or permitted. Later, when the building was sold and developed, the developer managed to exploit this little loophole and re-painted the facade, as it was a cheaper way to complete his crappy “renovation”.
It seeems in many cases landmarks doesn’t want just what’s best for restoration. They want what was there when landmarking happened.
You have to figure that someone painted it for a reason.
If the areas of flaking paint are small, I would just scrape a small area and repaint the same color.
Once the paint is removed from the whole facade, the Landmarks Commission will not let you repaint it.
It is bad for stone but oftentimes it seems the paint is covering up cement colored stucco and past unmatching brownstone tinted stucco. Our building is the same painted mess. When someone graffitied it we got some paint from Pinchek. We went there with a BM sample picked out, but the guy at Pinchek said, “Oh, no, you’ll want this color…” Perfect match. We ended up only having to repaint a small section.
The paint does the brownstone no good…it can’t breath. I’d have someone strip the paint, chemically, not powerwashing and then reassess the situation. You don’t have a pic that shows whether there seems to be serious deterioration of the underlying stone or whether it’s just a peeling paint job. From the pic you posted, the brownstone edges look crisp which is a good sign but to the left it looks like someone may have put a layer of stucco or cement on with that trowelled pattern and that will not come off as easily as paint.
I’m w/ BHS. Prepping & painting the whole thing is labor-intensive. When you’re ready you can either have that done (w/ a better paint job – it shouldn’t flake) or the full blown redo of the stone/masonry.
if it’s just a couple years wait, why not just scrape off the flaking paint once or twice a year? Won’t look perfect, but better than with flaking paint. And at least the paint is brownstone colored so there isn’t a big difference in the missing spots.
you can scrape and repaint it. landmark would want you to apply similar color. if you change,then permit is required.