Painters in Mary Hill, Port Coquitlam

Paint problems we see in Mary Hill

• Peeling and chalking paint on Mary Hill wood siding that has been through many BC winters.
• Original drywall interiors in Mary Hill homes that need proper sanding and priming before new paint.
• Cracked plaster, and drywall seams that have opened up, in the older Mary Hill houses.
• Gaps between trim and wall where an older Mary Hill house has settled, which need fresh caulk rather than paint.

What older drywall and plaster need before repainting

Plaster that's cracked but still solidly bonded to the wall usually just needs the crack widened slightly, filled, and sanded flush. Drywall with the same kind of crack often means a seam has opened up, and that needs proper tape and at least two coats of joint compound, where a bead of filler pressed into the gap isn't enough.

Lead paint in older interiors

Interior paint in homes built between 1960 and 1990 may contain smaller amounts of lead, and Health Canada's guidance is that this can still be harmful to young children if it's disturbed. Wet sanding, or a liquid deglosser instead of dry sanding, cuts down on airborne dust significantly, and it's a reasonable question to ask before any interior prep work starts on a home built before 1990.

What changes about a quote for an older home

A quote visit on an older property usually takes a little longer than one on new construction, and that's normal. Beyond measuring rooms and checking wall condition, it means looking for settling cracks versus ordinary surface cracks, checking whether trim and baseboards are original wood or a later replacement, and flagging any spot where moisture might be getting in rather than assuming it's purely cosmetic.

Living in the house while it's being painted

Interior painting doesn't have to mean moving out for a week, but a few rooms usually need to be off-limits for a day or two at a time while paint dries and cures. Pets and kids are usually better kept out of a freshly painted room entirely until the paint is fully dry to the touch, not just until it looks finished from the doorway.

What a finished drywall patch should look like

A drywall patch that's done right is invisible once it's painted. That means the compound is feathered out well past the edges of the actual repair so there's no visible ridge, the whole patch is primed before the topcoat goes on so it doesn't flash a different sheen than the surrounding wall, and the repair gets checked under a raking light, a flashlight held sideways across the surface, before anyone calls it finished.

Caulking and prep on interior trim and baseboards

Baseboards and window trim in older homes often carry decades of paint built up in layers, and any layer that isn't properly adhered is a spot the next coat can crack or peel from. Gaps between trim and the wall, especially where a house has settled slightly over the years, need fresh caulk before paint goes on rather than getting painted over as-is.

Serving Mary Hill and the rest of PoCo

Our pages on interior painting in Port Coquitlam, drywall repair and a full home repaint cover those jobs in Mary Hill too. If the work grows into an interior renovation, the City of Port Coquitlam's building permits page lists interior renovations among the work that needs a permit first.