By David Lee, owner of House Hues
- Location: Shannopin Highlands, Kilbuck Township, PA (north of Pittsburgh)
- Home: built in 1954, midcentury modern
- Scope: reworking a failed paint job inside and out: trim stripped back and rebuilt, wall patches after a full rewire, doors smoothed, full interior and exterior repaint
- Specialty finishes: a high gloss powder room in deep burgundy, and a VeroMetal brass front door with a custom handle
- Timeline: May to December 2025
- Architecture and design: Wildman Chalmers Design, with principal Heather Wildman leading the design
- General contractor: Dan Peluso, Peluso Sculpture
Ten years ago, people were giving midcentury furniture away. Now the same pieces command thousands. What used to be called dated has entered its renaissance, and the houses are getting the same second look.
A house with a story
In 1951, four Carnegie Tech architecture students, Ralph Burt, William Cole, Donald Garrett and Alva Hill, set out to put five years of theory into practice and build a house themselves. They found a sloping acre in McCandless Township and designed a low, L shaped, four level house in brick, redwood, glass and slate, stepped down the hill so every level had its own entrance at grade. The architecture school’s magazine, Charette, featured it in November 1951.
Burt and Hill went on to found the firm that became Burt Hill, one of Pittsburgh’s best known architecture firms, which designed buildings around the world before joining Stantec in 2010.
This house was one of three homes that came out of that collaboration. Its original blueprints still survive: “Residence for Mr. & Mrs. Paul K. Hirsch, Shannopin Highlands, Kilbuck Twp.,” dated August 1953.
A house like that deserves to be finished the way it was designed. When we got there, it hadn’t been.
Preservation or renewal?
People who love midcentury modern tend to love it true to form. To a preservationist, the original materials and layout are the point, and changing them can feel like erasing history. So a restoration like this one can be controversial.
This homeowner wanted something specific: a place to showcase art, and a place to call home in Pittsburgh. The house is a gallery as much as a home, and the finish work had to serve that. The result modernizes a classic. It keeps the bones that made the house special (the low, long lines, the walls of glass, the way it sits on the land) and gives the interior a clean, quiet backdrop for the art.
That’s the real renaissance. These houses aren’t museum pieces. People are choosing to live in them again, and every owner draws the line between preserving and updating in their own place.
For any older home: decide early what you’re preserving and what you’re updating, and tell your painter. It changes everything from the products and sheens to whether original surfaces get refinished or painted.
Walking into a failed remodel
We were brought in to rework a paint job someone else had started. The house had been under construction for a while, and the previous contractor had cut every corner he could. About 90 percent of the home had already been painted, but there were failure points everywhere.
The paint wasn’t the only thing. The new roof had to be redone. The new wiring had to be redone. The theme was across the board redo. Fortunately, the homeowner was dedicated to making this a home to be proud of.
Why the trim paint came off in sheets
The trim had originally been finished in oil based enamel. The previous crew rolled latex (Sherwin-Williams SuperPaint) straight over it, with no prep. The product wasn’t the problem. Latex has nothing to grip on hard, slick oil enamel unless the surface is sanded and primed with a bonding primer first. Without that, it sits on top like a skin, and here it came off in sheets.
It took the team weeks of backtracking just to reach a starting baseline. On every previously painted surface, we stripped the trim back to a coating that was secure, and built our primer base from there.
For any older home: if your trim was ever painted in oil, a new latex coat needs proper sanding and a bonding primer underneath it. Not sure what’s on there? A good painter can test it before starting. Painting over oil without that step is one of the most common reasons trim paint peels.
Patching after a rewire
With the walls already closed up, the electrician had to cut back into them to redo the wiring. Every one of those cuts had to be patched and tied into the surrounding wall so the repairs disappear once the paint goes on.
All of the doors also had roller texture from the earlier paint job, which we knocked back to get a smooth finish.
For any older home: wiring and plumbing work almost always leaves patches behind. Patching, feathering and priming them so they don’t show through the finish is part of the paint job, and worth asking about in an estimate.
Inside, then out
Once we had a sound baseline, the House Hues crew worked through the full interior and then moved to the exterior.
Inside, the palette is quiet on purpose, so the art carries the rooms:
- Trim: Benjamin Moore Command in a satin finish, in Sherwin-Williams Black Fox.
- Walls: Sherwin-Williams Emerald in a matte finish. The main off white is Benjamin Moore White Wisp, and the white shifts from space to space rather than one color running through the whole house: Sherwin-Williams Natural Linen in the office and Sherwin-Williams Heron Plume in the primary bedroom.
- Ceilings: Sherwin-Williams Premium Ceiling.
Matte walls keep the light soft on the art, and the dark satin trim draws the architecture’s lines without competing with it.
Outside, every surface went to Sherwin-Williams Black Fox, the same near black as the interior trim, so the house reads as one quiet, dark form against the trees:
- Siding and trim: Sherwin-Williams Duration in low luster and satin.
- Brick: a breathable stain rather than paint, so the masonry can still release moisture.
For any older home: standard paint can trap moisture in brick. If you want to change the color of masonry, a breathable stain or mineral finish is usually the safer choice.
The finishing touches
To put the cherry on top, I did two specialty finishes myself.
A high gloss powder room in deep burgundy
Getting high gloss in a room that’s already been painted takes product knowledge. Gloss shows every flaw, so the walls have to be truly flat first.
- Sand the existing coatings flat. I used the existing paint as the start of the flattening, without letting the sanding heat and gum up the latex underneath. That’s always a challenge.
- Build the surface with primers to fill voids and address imperfections.
- Block sand to flatten the larger planes.
- Apply a full gloss finish, 100 sheen, in Sherwin-Williams Rockwood Dark Red. I used ICA LAC 367, a solvent acrylic.
For any older home: high gloss can work in an existing room, but the prep is the job. Ask your painter how they’ll get the walls flat before the gloss goes on. More on high gloss finishes.
A VeroMetal brass front door
VeroMetal is a coating made with real metal. Once it’s applied, it’s sanded and polished like solid metal. I applied this one in the shop, where dust, temperature and lighting can be controlled. It starts with the same discipline as the powder room: the surface has to be truly flat.
- Prime with polyurethane primers rated for the exterior.
- Block sand to a smooth, even plane.
- Apply the brass coating.
- Process the metal, stepping up through the grits from 220 to a 3000 polish. This is the hard part. You’re flattening a metal that’s tough to sand the whole way through, and one burn through means the whole surface has to be redone.
- Patina. This door got a light patina.
- Seal with a nano coating that doesn’t change the luster or the color of the metal.
It also got a custom handle. As far as I know, you won’t find another door like it in the Pittsburgh metro. More on VeroMetal finishes.
The result
Once the art and furniture landed, everything meshed perfectly. The soul of 1954, reborn for 2025.
This project came together because of collaboration: the homeowner’s vision, Heather Wildman’s design at Wildman Chalmers Design, and Dan Peluso’s coordination as GC. When trust is the foundation, things flow.
Questions about restoring an older home
Why is the paint peeling off my trim?
Often because latex was put over old oil enamel without sanding and a bonding primer. The new coat never bonds, and it lets go in sheets.
Can you paint over a previous contractor’s bad paint job?
Sometimes, but usually not directly. Anything that isn’t bonded has to come off first, back to a coating that is. Otherwise the new paint fails with the old.
Can you get high gloss walls in a room that’s already painted?
Yes, with a lot of prep: flat sanding, building primers and block sanding so the gloss doesn’t show every flaw underneath.
What is VeroMetal?
A real metal coating applied over a primed surface, then sanded and polished like metal. It can give a door or a fixture the look of solid brass, bronze or copper.
How should you paint a midcentury modern house?
Start by deciding how much you’re preserving. Purists keep original surfaces and period colors. Others modernize, as this owner did, around how they want to live. Either way, keep the sheens subtle and the tones balanced, and save the statements for a few places that earn them.
Planning work on an older home? See our interior painting, exterior painting and VeroMetal finishes, or get in touch.
We shared this project when it wrapped: see the original post on Instagram.
Finished photography by Grady Gill, Nya Creative Studios.
