Room by room care for the Main Line's historic houses, from Wayne's Shingle Style streets to Newtown's old stone homes, with sensible lead dust precautions for anything built before 1978.
Old houses are a large part of daily life on the Main Line. Lower Merion has Harriton House from 1704, Newtown Township was settled in 1681 and still has old stone homes, and whole neighborhoods in Wayne date from the 1880s to the 1920s.
Those houses were built with materials that clean differently from modern ones. This guide covers what to watch for, what to avoid, and how TotalCare Cleaning will approach them when it comes to the Main Line.
Colonial and early stone homes. The oldest houses here date from the first European settlement. Newtown Township, known by its Newtown Square post office, was settled in 1681 and incorporated in 1684. Willistown has the Okehocking, Sugartown and White Horse historic districts. Stone walls, deep window reveals and wide plank floors are typical.
Railroad villages. When the Pennsylvania Railroad's Main Line arrived in 1869, Humphreysville became Bryn Mawr, and villages grew up around each stop. Paoli and Strafford, once called Eagle, followed the same pattern.
Estate era houses. From about 1880 to 1920, wealthy Philadelphia families built country estates along the line. In 1880, Anthony J. Drexel and George W. Childs bought land around the Wayne stop and developed it as the planned Wayne Estate. The North Wayne Historic District today holds 190 contributing buildings from 1881 to 1925, mostly Shingle Style and Colonial Revival.
Nearly every house in those three groups was built before 1978. The EPA says homes of that age are more likely to have lead-based paint, and that settled lead dust can re-enter the air when a home is swept or vacuumed. Window sills and wells, where painted sashes rub against frames, are where that dust tends to gather.
That changes how cleaning should be done. Damp wiping instead of dry dusting on painted trim and sills. HEPA filtration on the vacuum. No sanding, scraping or stripping, ever. Peeling or chipping paint is a job for a contractor trained in lead-safe work, not a cleaner.
Old oak and pine floors have been refinished many times, and some have worn through to bare wood near doors. Use a barely damp mop with a pH neutral cleaner, never a steam mop or a soaking wet one. Wide plank floors in stone houses often have gaps between boards that hold grit; a crevice tool gets it out without scratching.
Shingle Style and Colonial Revival interiors are trim heavy: tall baseboards, chair rails, picture rails and paneled doors. Dust them from the top down with a soft cloth, and wash baseboards by hand rather than with anything abrasive. Plaster walls should be spot cleaned gently; scrubbing can lift old paint.
Older bathrooms often have small hex or subway tile with original grout, marble thresholds and clawfoot tubs. Marble etches with acidic cleaners, including vinegar, so use a neutral stone cleaner. Porcelain on old tubs scratches with abrasive powders.
Steam radiators collect dust between the fins and on the wall behind them. A radiator brush and a vacuum clear them; avoid spraying water on a hot unit. With about 44 inches of precipitation and humid summers, old bathrooms with small fans dry slowly, so leave doors and shower curtains open after use.
Original wood windows and their storm sashes are beautiful, but their gaps are exactly where brown marmorated stink bugs squeeze in each September and October. Vacuum them from tracks and sills rather than crushing them. A deep clean clears tracks and wet-wipes blinds; sealing the gaps is a carpentry job.
When TotalCare Cleaning comes to the Main Line, an older house will usually start with a One-Time Deep Clean and then move to a bi-weekly plan. The deep cleaning guide lists what that first visit covers.
The questions Philadelphia Main Line homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Philadelphia Main Line and surrounding areas with background-checked cleaners and is insured up to $1 million. Re-clean guarantee: if we missed something, tell us by the end of the next day and we come back to fix it. Beyond Clean. TotalCare.
