Painter in Caulfield, VIC
Caulfield, around Glen Eira Road
Caulfield is a suburb of established family houses and solid interwar flats. Edwardian houses, Californian bungalows and 1930s brick homes line the streets around Glen Eira Road and Hawthorn Road, with blocks of flats from the 1930s onwards in between. Painting here is often a period house repainted inside or out, or a flat refreshed between owners, and many of the houses have been in the same family for a long time.
Most houses have a front garden, a driveway or a side path, and room to park in the street, so access is usually simple. Race days and events at the nearby racecourse can fill the streets with cars, so the first morning is planned around them. In the flats, stairwells are shared, there is often no lift, and the owners corporation decides when trades can work in the common areas.
The Edwardian houses and bungalows are red brick or weatherboard, with timber verandahs or porches, leadlight, wide eaves and plaster ceilings, some of them still lath and plaster. The interwar flats are solid brick with plaster ceilings and steel or timber windows. Old paint on homes of this age may contain lead, so it is removed with care rather than sanded off, and face brick that has never been painted is left as it is.
What we do here most
What Caulfield keeps needing
Most jobs here are older homes and flats that have been patched and repainted many times, and need doing properly once.
Painting and restoration
Steel window frames in an interwar block
Blocks of flats from the 1930s here often have steel window frames that have rusted at the corners and along the sills, under paint that has cracked. Rust is cleaned back to sound metal and treated, the frames are primed with a primer made for steel, and they are painted with the putty and glass protected.
Exterior painting
An Edwardian verandah and timber front
Edwardian houses here often have a timber verandah with turned posts, a fretwork frieze and timber boards, and that is where the paint fails first. Loose paint is removed by hand, soft timber is repaired, and the front is primed and painted in colours that suit the house. Leadlight and face brick are protected and left as they are.
Walls and ceilings
Old lath and plaster patched with plasterboard
Many older homes here have lath and plaster ceilings that were patched with plasterboard at some point, leaving a visible step or crack where the two meet. The join is cut back, set and feathered out so it disappears, cracks in the old plaster are filled where it is sound, and the whole ceiling is painted.
House repainting
A family home repainted before a sale
Houses here often come up for sale after many years, with rooms that need a full repaint before the photographs. The ceilings, walls, doors and trims are done in a neutral scheme agreed with you and the agent, and the work is planned backwards from the listing date. Race day parking is worked around when the dates clash.
If it is urgent
If water comes through a ceiling in Caulfield
- 1Work out whether the water is coming from the roof or from a flat above, by asking the neighbour or looking at the gutter from the ground. Put a bucket under any drip and switch off the power at the board for any light fitting near the water.
- 2Keep away from an old ceiling that is bowing, especially lath and plaster, because it can come down in a heavy piece. Do not paint over the stain, and leave shared pipes and roofs in a block of flats to the owners corporation.
- 3When you call, say whether it is a house or a flat, which room is affected, and whether the leak has been fixed. Tell us if the work would fall on a race day, because parking near the house can get harder.
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 Caulfield, VIC
These are the eleven things we do across Melbourne, done here to suit Edwardian houses, bungalows and the interwar flats between them.
Local, and on the phone
Painting work in Caulfield
Call or email and say whether it is a house or a flat, and roughly when it was built. That tells us how the old paint is handled and who needs to approve the work.
0431 639 501Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:30pm
Not urgent? Send us the job instead