Cushing Square Painters — Trapelo Road, Common Street & Cushing Avenue

Cushing Square sits where Common Street, Trapelo Road and Cushing Avenue meet, near the Watertown line. Belmont's 2014–2016 historic resources survey credits the West End Street Railway, which arrived in 1891, with making the area what it is: both main roads were widened to 75 feet to carry center tracks, and shops followed to serve the new houses in Payson Park next door. The irregular road lines, the survey notes, leave oddly shaped lots and buildings.

The first substantial building, the curved 1913 block at 489-493 Common Street, has wood-shingled gambrel fronts on its second floor above storefronts set between brick piers. Single-story "taxpayer" blocks, many with cast concrete parapets, went up along Trapelo Road and Common Street in the 1910s and 1920s. The Winters Block at 72-86 Trapelo Road, finished in two phases in 1925 and 1929, is Tudor Revival, with stucco, half-timbering and steep gables rising from a slate roof.

Some buildings were moved as the square grew. The 1905 Merrow grocery was later shifted and incorporated into a home on Creeley Road, and Frederick Drew's two-family house was relocated to Horne and Williston Streets in 1935 to clear the site of the Harvard Trust branch at 63 Trapelo Road.

Census Tract 3575, on the west side of Common Street and including 489 Common Street, gives a sense of the housing just off the square: 56.5% of its units are in two-unit buildings, 73.1% were built in 1939 or earlier, and 44.9% of occupied units are rented. Town Meeting adopted a Cushing Square Overlay District in 2006 to allow more mixed use; its first major project, the Bradford, has 112 residential units above ground-floor retail.

Two owners, one exterior

With more than half the tract's units in two-unit buildings, an exterior job here can involve two households, or an owner and a tenant. Agreeing on color, schedule and who pays for shared porches and stairs before work begins keeps the project from stalling halfway.

Stucco, half-timber and shingle side by side

The Winters Block's stucco and timber, the shingled gambrels on Common Street and the concrete parapets of the taxpayer blocks each need a different coating. Stucco and masonry need a breathable coating, while shingles and trim take a paint system made for wood.

Working next to Trapelo Road traffic

Trapelo Road began as a streetcar route and later became a major automobile road, according to the town survey. On a house that fronts it or Common Street, ladder placement, sidewalk protection and road grit settling on wet paint all need planning.

Old paint on a moved house

A building that was relocated or reworked, like the Creeley Road home that absorbed an old grocery, can hide mismatched siding and earlier paint layers under newer coats. With 73.1% of the tract's units built before 1940, lead-safe testing and prep come before any scraping.