Painter in Balwyn North, VIC
Balwyn North, from Doncaster Road to the freeway
Balwyn North is one of the places where post-war Melbourne is being rebuilt house by house. Brick veneers from the 1950s and 60s still line most streets either side of Doncaster Road, and between them are large new homes with rendered fronts and two storeys of glass. Painting here is often a full interior in a new house, or an older house being freshened for a sale or for the family who still lives in it.
Streets are wide and blocks are big, so there is usually room on the driveway and in the street. New homes often have tall front walls, double height entries and balconies, which need extension ladders or a platform rather than a stepladder. Building sites next door are common, so the trucks and the dust are planned around, and wet paint on an outside wall is kept away from days when the site next door is cutting or sweeping.
The post-war houses are brick veneer with timber eaves, timber window frames and plasterboard ceilings, and their eaves are often lined with old fibre cement, which is treated as possible asbestos: it is not sanded or scrubbed hard, and it is tested before any work. The new homes are square set plaster inside with large, flat walls, and rendered or clad outside, where a primer and coating suited to render and cladding are needed rather than ordinary house paint.
What we do here most
What Balwyn North keeps needing
The work here swings between brand new surfaces and sixty year old ones, often on the same street.
New build painting
Sealing and painting a brand new double storey
A new home here can have a dozen rooms, two living areas, a stairwell and a double height entry, all in new plaster. Every surface is sealed before the top coats, the high walls are reached from a platform, and the work is planned with the builder so the floors and joinery are protected throughout.
House repainting
A long held post-war house freshened inside and out
Original brick houses often have eaves, window frames and fascias that have not been painted in years, with tired walls and ceilings inside. Outside, the timber is scraped and primed and the eaves are cleaned and coated. Inside, cracked joints are filled and the rooms are painted in an order the family can live with.
Walls and ceilings
Long flat walls that show every mark
Square set walls in new homes are long and smooth and lit by large windows, so a patch or a lap mark shows from across the room. Repairs are sanded and checked under a side light, and each wall is rolled from corner to corner in one go to keep lap marks down.
Exterior painting
A rendered front wall with fine cracking
Rendered fronts on newer houses can develop fine cracks around windows and at the corners. Loose paint around each crack is taken off first and the edges are sanded smooth. The cracks are opened slightly and filled with a flexible filler, and the wall is coated with a paint made for render, so it can move with the building.
If it is urgent
If water comes through a ceiling in Balwyn North
- 1Check whether a box gutter, a balcony or an upstairs bathroom sits above the stain, because those are the common sources in newer two storey houses. Put a bucket under any drip and switch off the power at the board for nearby light fittings.
- 2Leave a bowing ceiling alone and keep people out from under it. Do not paint over the stain or cut into the plaster, because the builder or the insurer may need to see it first.
- 3When you call, say whether it is an original house or a new build, which room and which level, and whether the builder is still looking after defects. Tell us if a building site next door affects parking.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Which parts of Melbourne do you work in?
Melbourne's eastern and inner south-eastern suburbs, from Box Hill, Blackburn and Doncaster through Balwyn, Kew and Camberwell to Richmond, Toorak, Malvern, Prahran and Caulfield. All 25 suburbs are listed on the service areas page. If yours is not there, ask anyway, because the list is where the work goes most often rather than a fence.
Do you do plastering as well as painting?
Yes. Cracks, holes, water damaged patches and loose ceiling sheets are repaired and sanded before the paint goes on, so the repair and the painting are planned as one job rather than two trades working around each other. Most repaints in older houses need some of this, and it goes on the quote as its own line.
Can you fix rotten timber or a sticking door while you are here?
Yes, carpentry and fixing is one of the services, and it usually goes alongside the painting. Rotten weatherboards, soft window sills, loose skirting, sticking doors and broken fence palings are the common ones. Mention them when you call so they are in the quote rather than found on the day.
Do you do insurance repair work?
Yes. Painting and plaster repairs after a leak, a storm or an impact are one of the services. If you have a claim number or an assessor's report, send it with your enquiry and the quote is written against the same items, which makes the two easy to compare.
Do you give a written quote before starting?
Yes. You get it in writing before any paint is bought, listing the rooms or walls, the repairs, the preparation and the number of coats. If something changes once work starts, such as rot under a window sill, it is written down and you decide before it is done.
What do you need from me to quote?
Which rooms or which sides of the house, roughly how big they are, and a few photos taken in daylight. Point out anything flaking, cracked or stained, because preparation changes a quote more than size does. For outside work, say whether the house is single or double storey.
Can you help us choose colours?
We can talk through what tends to work on the house you have and how a colour behaves on that surface in that light. A sample patch on the actual wall is the most reliable way to decide, and it is worth doing before a full tin is bought. The final choice is always yours.
Do I need to move the furniture out first?
No, though clearing small and fragile things off shelves and walls helps. Larger furniture is moved to the middle of the room and covered, and floors are covered before anything is opened. Tell us about anything that cannot be moved, such as a piano or built in shelving.
What hours do you work?
Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:30pm. If you live in an apartment or a townhouse with set hours for trades, tell us when you call and the work days are planned inside them.
How long does a room or a house take?
It depends on the preparation more than the painting, so the honest answer comes with the quote rather than before it. A bedroom with sound walls is a different job from one with cracked plaster and a stained ceiling. Outside work also depends on the weather, because paint needs dry surfaces and mild days to go on well.
What happens if it rains during an outside job?
Work on the outside stops while the surfaces are wet, because paint put over damp timber or render does not hold. The day is moved rather than pushed through, and inside work can sometimes fill the gap. We let you know as soon as a day has to move.
Is old paint on an older house a problem?
It can be. Paint on houses built before the 1970s may contain lead, and that changes how it should be prepared, because dry sanding it spreads the dust. Tell us roughly when the house was built and we will talk it through before anything is quoted.
Everything we do here
Services in Balwyn North, VIC
These are the eleven things we do across Melbourne, done here to suit post-war brick veneers and the large new homes going up beside them.
Also nearby
We work in these suburbs too
Local, and on the phone
Painting work in Balwyn North
Call or email and say whether the house is new or original, and how many rooms and storeys it has. That tells us whether the job needs a platform and how many days to plan.
0431 639 501Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:30pm
Not urgent? Send us the job instead