Exterior Painting in Canton, MA.

Exterior work is driven by the house type, and here the dominant type is the detached single-family home: Census estimates count 5,516 of them, 55.9% of all housing units, with another 6.6% in attached townhouse-style units. Those are the buildings where the owner, not an association, decides when siding gets painted and in what color.

Age spreads widely. The Census places the town's median build year around 1980, yet 1,106 units date to 1939 or earlier and 2,472 were built since 2000. A post-2000 house with factory-primed siding and a Federal-era house with many layers of old paint on its clapboards call for very different prep.

Canton Corner's mix of siding

The National Register nomination for the Canton Corner Historic District, listed in 2009 and running roughly along Washington Street and Pleasant Street, records walls of clapboard, shingle, brick and stucco. It also notes that several Federal-period houses, such as the 1798 Downes House at 1466 Washington Street, have clapboards on the facade and wood shingles on the other sides.

That detail matters for painting. Clapboards are typically painted, while shingles on the same house may be painted, stained or left to weather, and each takes a different product and prep. Matching the treatment to the material on each elevation, rather than coating everything the same way, keeps the shingled walls from being sealed under a film they were not meant to carry.

Being on the National Register does not, by itself, limit what a private owner may do: the National Park Service says listing places no restrictions on non-federal owners unless federal money is involved, while noting that state or local preservation laws can still apply. Canton's Demolition Delay Bylaw does apply to historically or architecturally significant buildings built before 1940: the owner needs Historical Commission approval first, and the Commission can delay demolition for up to six months.

Trim that is hidden or missing

The same nomination describes the 1876 Italianate Parish Hall at 1508 Washington Street, where vinyl siding applied between 1977 and 1982 removed or concealed much of the bracketed cornice, corner pilasters and window hoods. If your house has vinyl over original wood, the condition of the wood underneath decides whether uncovering, repairing and repainting it is realistic or whether painting the vinyl makes more sense.

Scraping old paint safely

Half of the town's housing stock, 50.3% by Census count, predates 1980, and exterior paint on pre-1978 houses can contain lead. Scraping and sanding are exactly where lead chips and dust get released, which is why EPA requires anyone paid to disturb paint on those homes to be certified in lead-safe work practices. Outside, that means covering the ground, not burning paint off with an open flame, and collecting debris instead of letting it fall into garden beds. Our lead-safe painting page explains the full process.

• Clapboard and wood-shingle siding
• Cornices, corner boards, window casings and sills
• Front doors, storm doors and shutters
• Porch ceilings, columns and railings
• Carpentry repair of rotted trim before painting

The painting season

Exterior coatings need surface and air temperatures within the label range, dry siding, and enough hours above that range for the film to cure before the evening dew. In Massachusetts that limits exterior painting to the warmer part of the year, and late-season work depends on the product's minimum temperature. Our guide to painting an exterior in November covers the cold-weather limits, and common exterior paint failures shows what goes wrong when moisture is ignored.