Saskatoon's older neighbourhoods, Nutana, Caswell Hill, City Park, are full of character homes with plaster walls, high trim, and sometimes lead paint. Painting them is not the same as painting a new build. The prep is different, the surfaces are different, and the shortcuts that work on drywall will fail on plaster.
Plaster is not drywall
Plaster cracks along lath lines and keys loose over decades. You cannot just fill a crack and paint. We widen the crack, mesh it, and skim it so the repair does not come back in a season. Bare plaster sucks moisture out of paint fast, so we prime with a product made for porous surfaces.
Lead-safe prep on pre-1960 homes
Health Canada advises that homes built before 1960 likely contain lead paint, and homes built between 1960 and 1990 may contain some. On a Saskatoon character home, we assume the trim carries it until we know otherwise. We prep lead-safe: we contain the dust, avoid dry sanding where we can, and clean thoroughly. This is not optional, and it is not the same as a standard sand and paint.
Matching existing sheen
When you repair a wall in a character home, the patch has to match the sheen around it or it shows. We feather the repair and match the sheen so the fix disappears into the old wall.
Original trim is worth keeping
The old-growth trim in these homes is better wood than you can buy today. We do not recommend replacing it. We sand, degloss, prime, and repaint it. The prep is more work, but the result is trim that looks right in the house.
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