Exterior Painting across Salem, Massachusetts.

Half of Salem's housing stock predates World War II. Census data counts 10,951 of the city's 21,492 units as built in 1939 or earlier, and the median year built is 1938. Siding on a house that age may carry many coats of paint, and every layer adds to the stack that has to bond, flex and shed water. Failure on such a stack shows up as alligatored or curling paint, often on the south and west walls, at window sills, and under gutters that overflow.

The city's architecture runs from Federal-era mansions near Chestnut Street and the Common to the neighborhoods rebuilt after the Great Salem Fire of 1914. Each of those building types has its own trim details, and a paint plan for a Salem exterior starts by walking the house and noting what is original wood, what has been replaced, and where moisture is getting in.

Color changes in the four local historic districts

Salem has four local historic districts: McIntire, Derby Street, Lafayette Street and Washington Square. Inside them, the Salem Historical Commission's guidelines require a Certificate of Appropriateness for changes visible from a public way, and paint color is named specifically, down to windows, doors, porches and storms. An application for new colors should include a paint chip or chart.

The guidelines do not impose a fixed palette. They ask that colors suit the house's architectural period and its neighbors, and they accept opaque stain as an alternative to paint when the surface is properly prepared. Repainting in the existing colors is treated as ordinary maintenance, which falls under a Certificate of Non-Applicability instead. Starting work without the needed approval exposes the owner to fines of up to $500 per day under the Commission's guidelines, so the paperwork belongs at the front of the schedule. If you live in the McIntire District, that review applies to almost any visible color change.

Paint removal rules that change the prep method

The paint-color section of the same guidelines states that a Salem Health Department permit must be issued before any paint removal process, that electric sanding on exterior surfaces is prohibited, and that abrasive blasting is not allowed without a Board of Health variance under Health Regulation #23. In practice, that points prep toward hand scraping, wet methods, and chemical or heat-controlled stripping where a surface has to come down to wood.

Those rules sit alongside the lead question. Census year bins put 76.4% of Salem's housing units before 1980, the closest available proxy for the 1978 federal ban on lead in residential paint. Exterior prep on those houses needs ground covers, containment and daily cleanup; our lead-safe painting page explains the approach.

Siding and trim on Salem houses

Within the historic districts, the Commission's guidelines list brick, clapboards, and flush or rusticated boarding as appropriate siding, and they prohibit vinyl and aluminum. Wood clapboard, corner boards, cornices and window casings are the surfaces where most of the labor goes.

The work usually breaks down like this:

• Scraping loose paint and feathering edges so the next coat doesn't telegraph old ridges
• Spot-priming bare wood with a primer matched to the existing coating
• Replacing or consolidating rotted sill, fascia and clapboard sections before paint
• Caulking joints that move, while leaving the clapboard laps open so the wall can breathe
• Two finish coats on siding, with doors, sash and porch rails brushed

A harbor city and the painting season

Salem's waterfront includes the Salem Maritime National Historical Park, and the Derby Wharf Light Station has marked the harbor since 1871. Houses on open stretches near the water, such as Salem Willows or The Point, can take more wind-driven rain than a sheltered lot, so it pays to inspect the weather sides of the house more closely. Exterior paint goes on during the dry, mild months; our article on the best time of year to paint in Massachusetts covers temperature and dew limits, and common exterior paint failures shows what each kind of peeling tells you.