Exterior Painting throughout Somerville, MA.

More than half of Somerville's housing units, 55.2%, are in buildings of two to four units, while single-family detached houses make up just 10.5%. Add the 29.9% in buildings of five or more, and about 85% of the city's units sit in a building shared with at least one other unit: one roof, one set of walls, and several households who all see the result.

Age matters as much as size. The median Somerville home was built in 1938, and 59.0% of units date from 1939 or earlier. On a building that old, the exterior has usually been painted many times, and the condition of those layers decides how much scraping, priming and carpentry the job needs before a finish coat goes on.

Victorian and Revival trim

The city's National Register districts show what the older housing looks like. The Spring Hill Historic District, roughly bounded by Summer, Central, Atherton and Spring Streets, holds Greek Revival houses alongside Second Empire, Italianate, Gothic Revival and Queen Anne Victorians, with later Colonial Revival and Shingle Style infill, built mainly from the 1840s into the early 1900s. The Westwood Road district nearby is Colonial Revival, Queen Anne and Shingle Style. On Mount Vernon Street in East Somerville, the listed group includes four Greek Revival houses from about 1850 and a Second Empire duplex from about 1880.

Houses in those styles carry far more trim per wall than a plain box: brackets under the eaves, window hoods, turned porch posts and balusters, corner boards and multi-piece cornices. Trim often fails before the siding does and takes much of the hand labor, so an estimate on a Victorian should break out trim and porch work separately from the siding body.

Local Historic Districts and what they review

Somerville's Historic Preservation Commission, established in 1985, reviews alterations to Local Historic District properties that are visible from a public way and would change design, materials or appearance. The city states that the Commission does not review routine maintenance or replacement using the same design and materials as the original building. In 2014 the Commission counted more than 200 Local Historic Districts covering over 350 properties, many of them single buildings, with concentrations in East Somerville, Prospect Hill and Spring Hill.

Repainting in kind is maintenance. Whether a new color scheme counts as a change in appearance is a question we could not confirm from the city's published material, so if your building is a designated property, contact the Commission before choosing new colors rather than after. Replacing rotted trim with a different profile or material, or removing decorative elements, is clearly the kind of change the Commission reviews.

Scraping lead paint safely

With 79.8% of units in decades before 1980, the paint being scraped off a Somerville house should be treated as lead-bearing unless tested. The federal RRP rule requires certified firms and renovators for work that disturbs paint on pre-1978 homes. Outside, that means ground plastic extended past the drip line, wet scraping, no power sanding without HEPA shrouds, daily cleanup and attention to neighbors' yards and gardens, which can sit close to a property line. Details are on the lead-safe painting page.

Sun, shade and the painting season

Based on 2018 aerial imagery, tree canopy covers 14.6% of Somerville, with the least in Ward 1 and the most in Wards 6 and 7. A south or west wall in full sun loses paint gloss and color faster, while a wall shaded by a tree or a neighboring building stays damp longer and is more prone to mildew and peeling. Walking each elevation before writing a scope catches both.

Exterior coatings need dry surfaces and temperatures within the product's range for application and curing, which in Massachusetts narrows the practical season. The best time to paint in Massachusetts explains the window, and common exterior paint failures shows what goes wrong when prep is rushed. Painting itself needs no building permit in Somerville, though carpentry repairs beyond painting may.