South Abington Painters — Abington's south end

South Abington left Abington in 1875, after a dispute over school costs, and in 1886 it took the name Whitman, according to the Dyer Memorial Library. Its Second Church is now part of Whitman's history. This page is about the homes on the Abington side of that border.

Two Census block groups of Tract 5201 make up the south end, and their numbers point in opposite directions. In the southwestern one, which the Census geocoder shows taking in Groveland and Linwood Streets, 45.6% of the 651 units were built in the 1950s and the median year built is 1958. Seventy-two percent are single-family detached, and about 83% are owner-occupied.

The southeastern block group, with Summer Street, Brockton Avenue and the 100 and 300 blocks of Washington Street, is younger: 42.3% of its 695 units were built in 2000 or later, and 22.2% are in buildings of ten or more units. Owner occupancy there is 62%. Both sets of figures come with wide margins of error, as block-group estimates do, but the contrast is large enough to matter.

The same southeastern area still has an 18th-century house. The Lt. Samuel Browne House at 303 Washington Street, recorded by the Abington Historical Commission and filed by the state under Abington Center, is an Early Cape from the early 1790s with wood-shingle walls. It sits high on a ledge, so its south end rises three stories with the cellar above ground.

A postwar corner built in one decade

In the southwestern block group, nearly half the houses date from the same ten years. Houses from the 1950s predate the 1978 lead ban, so original paint on trim, doors and windows may contain lead, and federal rules for pre-1978 housing apply to paid work that disturbs it. See lead-safe painting.

Homes built since 2000

Houses from the 2000s and 2010s fall outside the RRP rule's pre-1978 scope, so prep is about cleaning, caulking and spot-priming rather than containment. An early repaint is a chance to change colors without decades of buildup underneath. Our exterior painting page for Abington covers the process.

Apartment and condo buildings

Roughly one unit in five in the southeastern block group is in a building of ten or more units. Where such a building is a condominium, hallways, entries and exterior trim are common areas, so the association or its manager schedules that work and may require a certificate of insurance from the painter. Rental buildings are arranged through the owner. See condo painting in Abington.

Shingle walls on a ledge

A house like the Browne House, with wood-shingle walls and one end standing a full story taller because of the ledge, needs ladder or staging setups that change from one end of the house to the other. Shingles also have to be checked for whether they carry stain or paint before choosing a coating.