Lynn Highlands Painters — Chatham and Chestnut Street uplands

Building on these streets started early. For the Early Industrial period (1830–1870), the Massachusetts Historical Commission describes especially dense nodes along Chestnut and Chatham at Essex Street, and its finder's aid lists cottages of that era on Chatham and Chestnut near Essex. MHC also recorded substantial Greek Revival and Italianate houses along the Franklin and Chestnut Street axis.

After the Civil War, MHC says, most Lynn housing outside the shore estates followed a plain workers' side-hall form with simple Queen Anne porches and shingle detail, and that well-preserved groups remain in the highlands along Chatham and Chestnut Streets, often in two-family plans. Along Chestnut and Franklin, MHC adds, Queen Anne houses were infilled with Romanesque apartment buildings.

Renters outnumber owners in both census tracts that cover these streets. In Tract 2065, which contains the 150 block of Chatham and the 100 block of Chestnut, 56.7% of units are in two- to four-unit buildings and 66.9% were built in 1939 or earlier. Tract 2063, which contains the 200 blocks of both streets, is more mixed in age: 16.1% of its units date from 2000 to 2009, and owners occupy 39.4% of its homes.

The side-hall facade

A side-hall house puts its entry and stair to one side of a narrow gable front, so the street face is mostly porch, door trim and stacked windows. Where a two-family version has porches stacked on both floors, their columns, rails and ceilings take more brush time than the clapboard walls.

Shingle bands and Queen Anne trim

Where the simple Queen Anne shingle work MHC describes sits in an upper gable, it is the hardest part of the house to reach. Staging for that gable, and replacing any split shingles before paint, belongs in the estimate from the start.

Landlords, tenants and scheduling

Owners occupy 47.7% of homes in Tract 2065 and 39.4% in Tract 2063, so most occupied units in these tracts are rented. Interior painting in occupied units needs notice, room-by-room sequencing and lead-safe containment where old paint is disturbed.

Apartment blocks among the houses

The Romanesque apartment infill MHC notes on Chestnut and Franklin puts larger apartment buildings among the wood-frame houses. Where one of them is unpainted brick or stone, it is generally best left unpainted, and the paint work centers on windows, cornices and entries.