Where I paint, and what those houses usually need.

Amherst

Amherst is the largest of the towns I work in and the most varied. The older parts — Snyder, Eggertsville, the streets near Main Street — went up between the wars and in the years right after, so you find painted wood siding, deep trim profiles and porches that need scraping more often than they need replacing. North Amherst and the eastern subdivisions are mostly 1950s to 1970s ranches, splits and colonials: manageable single-storey elevations, but a lot of window trim and soffit, and forty years of sun on the south side.

Practically: on the older stock the money goes into prep, and on the post-war stock it goes into trim and fascia.

Williamsville

Williamsville splits into two jobs. In and around the village there is genuinely old housing — nineteenth-century and turn-of-the-century homes with tall windows, detailed cornices and multiple trim profiles. That is slow, careful work, done with a brush more than a roller, and it is also where lead-safe practice matters most if the house predates 1978.

Out toward the Transit corridor it’s a different town entirely: 1960s and 1970s subdivisions with repetition of the same few house plans, which means straightforward interiors and exteriors. Interiors here are usually about worn hallways and a kitchen that’s been cooked in for twenty years rather than about failure.

Clarence

Clarence is where the jobs get bigger. Larger lots, larger houses, more of them built from the 1980s onward with tall two-storey foyers, cedar or fiber-cement siding, and long runs of trim on gables and dormers. Around the Clarence Hollow, near Main Street, the housing is older and much more detailed — the opposite problem in a smaller package.

Because the elevations are bigger, an exterior here takes longer than the same square footage in Amherst, and it needs the weather to cooperate for longer too. Two-storey walls also mean more ladder and staging time, which shows up in the quote.

Getzville

Getzville sits between Amherst and the Niagara County line, and most of it is later suburban building — 1970s through 2000s, generous floor plans, bigger exteriors and a lot of attached garages and gables. There is also older farmhouse stock along the county roads, which is the opposite end of the spectrum and usually needs the most prep per square foot.

The newer houses mostly need maintenance rather than repair: fascia and trim holding up better than the caulk at the seams, and door heads where water sits.

Tonawanda

The City of Tonawanda is the densest, oldest and most painted-siding-heavy part of my area. Bungalows, doubles and two-storey frame houses from the 1920s through the 1950s, sitting close together, with wooden siding that has been repainted many times over. Houses here also commonly predate 1978, so lead-safe work practices are part of the job, not an add-on.

Tight lots mean more careful protection of neighbouring property and more hand-work where a ladder can’t be set. It is slower work, and I price it that way rather than discovering it halfway through.

Grand Island

Grand Island’s housing runs from 1950s cottages and ranches to much newer builds on large lots, but what distinguishes it is the weather. Sitting in the Niagara River, the island gets more wind, more blowing rain and more freeze-thaw cycling than the inland towns, and the river-facing sides of those houses show it: caulk failing first, then paint at the joints and the south and west elevations.

That means an exterior here benefits from being looked at sooner rather than later, and from genuinely good caulk and primer rather than the cheapest of either.

Not on that list?

Call and ask. I’d rather turn down a job two towns away than do a bad one because I was driving forty minutes each way and cutting corners to make the day work. If you’re just outside the six towns — Buffalo, Kenmore, the Town of Tonawanda, East Amherst — it’s worth a conversation, and I’ll tell you honestly whether it makes sense.

I’d rather be the first person you think of in six towns than the fortieth in twenty. That’s the whole reason the list is short.

What painting costs in this market →