Triple-Decker Painting
Stacked porches and tall side walls on Wollaston, North Quincy and Quincy Point two-families, staged one side at a time around tenants.
DetailsHouse painting and wallpaper hanging across Quincy (02169)
Quincy packs three kinds of house into one city: two-families near the Red Line, Victorians on the hills and shingle cottages on the peninsulas. Each one needs different prep, and we plan every job around which one you own.
City or town, MA
02169
- Houses
- Two-families, Colonial Revivals, Victorians and shingle cottages
- Built
- 1890s to 1960s, most of it before 1978
- Landmark
- Adams National Historical Park and Hancock Street
- Phone
- (617) 576-8235, any hour
Painting and paperhanging in Quincy
Quincy grew as a shipbuilding and granite city and then as a commuter suburb along the rail line to Boston, and its houses show all of it. Wollaston, North Quincy and Quincy Point are full of up-and-down two-families with stacked porches. Wollaston Hill and Merrymount hold Victorians and Colonial Revivals with deep trim and papered dining rooms. Houghs Neck, Squantum and Adams Shore are lined with cottages that started as summer places and now take the full force of every winter off the bay.
That mix is why we price and schedule Quincy work house by house. A Squantum cottage needs washing, brightening and a stain that can live with salt wind. A two-family near the Wollaston Red Line stop needs staging that works around tenants and permit parking. A Wollaston Hill parlor might need old paper stripped, horsehair plaster reattached and a skim coat before anything new goes on the walls. We look at all of it on the walk-through and put it in writing.
Housing era1890s to 1960s, most of it before 1978
Common housesTwo-families, Colonial Revivals, Victorians and shingle cottages
LandmarkAdams National Historical Park and Hancock Street
What fails firstSalt-air peeling near the bay and cracked plaster inside older houses
Access and stagingPermit parking near Red Line stops and beach traffic on Quincy Shore Drive in summer
Which Quincy houses need what, from the hills to the shore
Two-families are the backbone of the city, and most of our exterior work on them is about the porches and the tall side walls. Porch decks and stair treads wear through first, then the trim around the porch ceilings, where water sits after a storm. On the side walls we scrape and spot-prime failing paint, replace rotted clapboard where it has gone soft, and repaint so the whole elevation weathers evenly instead of in patches.
Up on Wollaston Hill and around Merrymount Park, the older single-family houses carry brackets, corner boards and window casings that have been painted many times. Thick, alligatored paint has to come down by hand, lead-safe, before new coats will hold. Out on the peninsulas, cedar shingles go gray and soft on the bay side, and trim needs a paint that can take wind-driven rain. We match the product to the exposure, not just the color chip.
Inside Quincy homes: plaster, old paper and rental turnovers
Most older Quincy houses still have plaster walls, and plenty of them still have wallpaper, sometimes several layers of it under paint. We strip paper without gouging the plaster, wash off the paste, reattach loose plaster and skim the walls smooth so new paint or a new paper lies flat. When you have picked a wallpaper, our paperhangers plan the layout from a plumb line so the pattern meets cleanly at the corners.
Landlords make up a big share of our Quincy calls. Turnovers between leases, especially around the September 1 move, need a fast and consistent finish: patched nail holes, fresh ceilings, washable walls and trim that does not show every scuff. We schedule those jobs tight so the unit can be shown sooner, and we work around the tenants still living on the other floor.
How we schedule painting across Quincy
Exterior work in Quincy runs from late May into October. Near the water we start later in the morning, after the dew burns off, and we keep an eye on the wind, which can push spray and dust across a tight lot. On streets close to the Red Line we plan ladder and truck placement around permit parking, and in summer we avoid Quincy Shore Drive at beach hours when we can. Interior painting and wallpaper run all year, so winter is the best time to book a parlor, a stairwell or a full unit. Call any hour and we will set a walk-through and a written estimate.
The work we are called for most in Quincy
Exterior House Painting
Full repaints for Wollaston Hill Victorians and Merrymount Colonials, with hand scraping and lead-safe prep on old oil paint.
DetailsInterior Painting
Plaster walls, high ceilings and detailed trim in older Quincy houses, prepped so the finish looks even under window light.
DetailsWallpaper Removal
Layers of old paper stripped without gouging horsehair plaster, then washed, repaired and primed for paint or new paper.
DetailsApartment Turnover Painting
Fast, consistent unit repaints between leases for Quincy landlords, timed around the September move and the tenants upstairs.
DetailsCedar Shingle Staining
Cedar shingle cottages in Houghs Neck, Squantum and Adams Shore, washed and stained to stand up to salt wind off the bay.
DetailsNeed something else? We do all 40 painting and wallpaper services here.
Questions from Quincy homeowners
Which Quincy neighborhoods do your painters work in?
All of them. We work in Wollaston, North Quincy, Squantum, Montclair, Merrymount, Houghs Neck, Adams Shore, West Quincy, South Quincy and Quincy Point, plus Quincy Center and the streets in between. Each neighborhood has its own page with the house types and problems we see there, and the same phone line books a walk-through anywhere in the city.
What does it cost to paint the outside of a Quincy two-family?
As a planning figure, a full exterior repaint of a Quincy two-family typically runs from about $11,800 to $24,650, depending on height, porch work, how much rotted trim needs replacing and how much old paint has to come off lead-safe. The walk-through sets the real number, and the written estimate breaks the job down so you can see where the money goes.
Do you hang wallpaper in Quincy houses with old plaster walls?
Yes, and old plaster is most of what we hang on in Quincy. We check the walls first, reattach loose plaster, skim out cracks and dips, and prime with a wallcovering primer so the paper bonds and can be removed later without damage. Then we hang from a plumb line and match every seam.
How far ahead should I book exterior painting in Quincy?
For a spring or early summer start, call in winter. The Quincy exterior season runs roughly late May through early October, and the calendar fills early because so many houses here need porch and trim work. Interior painting and wallpaper can usually be scheduled within a few weeks at any time of year.
Every Quincy neighborhood we paint in
Each neighborhood page covers its own house types, problems and access.
Nearby places we also cover
Painting or wallpaper in Quincy?
Call (617) 576-8235. The line is answered 24/7 and we schedule walk-throughs across Quincy with a written estimate after every visit.