Floors, walls, trim and paint in Warminster

Warminster's modern history runs through its Navy base. The Brewster Aeronautical plant became the Naval Air Development Center at Johnsville, home of the world's largest human centrifuge, used to train the Project Mercury astronauts, and the base operated from 1944 until it closed in 1996. Housing came in waves. Warminster Heights was built by the federal government in 1943 for the plant's workers: cinder-block buildings on concrete slabs, four homes to a building. As late as 1955 the township still had no residential subdivisions at all, so most of Warminster's neighborhoods went up after that. Today the former base holds Warminster Community Park, an industrial park and new homes.

Slab construction changes the flooring answer. Solid hardwood doesn't belong directly on concrete, because it moves with moisture and a slab always gives some off, so on a slab we take a moisture reading first and use LVP, tile or glued-down engineered hardwood. Warminster Heights is slab throughout, and so are some later houses, additions and lower levels, so the same check applies there. In houses from the '50s through the '70s, eight-foot ceilings and simple original trim make a taller baseboard and new door casing one of the biggest visual changes for the money, and a paneled or papered feature wall gives a plain room a focal point. Most of Warminster's houses predate 1978, so we confirm the year before any painted surface is disturbed.