East Lynn Painters — Along Eastern Avenue toward Swampscott

Eastern Avenue is one of the major streetcar routes, with Western Avenue and Essex Street, along which the Massachusetts Historical Commission places most of Lynn's surviving two-family and three-decker housing. MHC adds that two-families and three-deckers kept filling vacant lots on Eastern Avenue until the Great Depression stopped building. Near the Swampscott line, Eastern Avenue meets Ocean Street and the Nahant Bay seawall, the eastern edge of the Diamond Historic District.

Two census tracts show the two halves. Tract 2064, holding the 400 block of Eastern Avenue and East Park Avenue, is older and more shared: 65.5% of units were built in 1939 or earlier and 31.5% sit in two-unit buildings. Tract 2051, holding the 500 block of Eastern Avenue plus Gertrude Street and Euclid Avenue, is 84.8% single-family detached, with owners in 82.4% of occupied homes. A fifth of its units (20.5%) were built in the 1960s, and the Census estimates none were built after 1999.

Two-families on the avenue

Count the trim before the walls on a two-family: two entries, two levels of windows and, where porches stack on both floors, two sets of rails and columns. Painting one means planning ladder or staging access around both units and settling on one color scheme for the whole building.

1960s houses in Tract 2051

The 1960s houses in Tract 2051 went up a decade or more before residential lead paint was banned in 1978, so their original coats may still contain it. Where the trim is plain, prep centers on window casings, fascia and doors rather than ornament.

Owner-led projects

Where four of five homes are owner-occupied, as in Tract 2051, exterior and interior projects can be scoped around one household's priorities, from a single front door to a full repaint.