Journal Square's classic pre-war walk-ups have great bones — plaster walls, high ceilings, real wood floors — but the light is a different story. Here's how the right paint colors, finishes, and prep can brighten a dark pre-war apartment.
Van Vorst Park Painting: Colors for 19th-Century Brownstones and Rowhouses
The park went in first — graded and planted in 1835, with the townhouses growing up around it over the next forty years. Painting here is equal parts preservation and color sense: check the district paperwork, respect what the masonry actually is, and pick colors that belong on 1860s architecture.
Hamilton Park House Painting Guide for Historic Jersey City Homes
The streets around Hamilton Park read like a museum of 19th-century Jersey City — three-story rowhouses above high basements, high stoops, cast-iron verandahs — and painting here is half craftsmanship, half historic-district paperwork. Here's the order of operations: HPC approvals, substrate prep, lead testing, then color.
Paulus Hook Brownstone Painting: Historic Interiors, Modern Colors
Paulus Hook's 19th-century brownstones have some of Jersey City's best bones — plaster walls, carved millwork, marble mantels — and some of its trickiest paint jobs. Here's how we approach historic interiors with modern colors, from the HPC paperwork nobody warns you about to the plaster prep that makes or breaks the finish.