House painting in Bayswater and Belmont

How Bayswater and Belmont were built

The North Shore Heritage review says the Bayswater peninsula, once known as O’Neill’s Point, was subdivided in 1910, and the suburb grew with the wharf, the ferry and a steam tram along Bayswater Avenue. Eastern Bayswater was still farmland in 1935 and was later developed for state housing.

The review names state housing streets including Bardia Street, Philomel Crescent, Diomede Street, Leander Road and Plymouth Crescent, and notes that after the Second World War, Navy housing was built of solid timber on large sections in Philomel Crescent, Portsmouth Road, Plymouth Crescent and Roberts Road. It describes Belmont and Bayswater as mainly bungalows, state houses and post-war homes.

Painting state, Navy and post-war timber houses

Solid timber houses from the 1940s and 50s are robust, but by now most have had many coats of paint. Expect some cracking at board ends and sills, putty and glazing to check on older windows, and paint layers that are presumed to contain lead. The walls are plain, so once prep is done the finish coats go on quickly.

• Board ends and sills: scraped, filled and primed before finish coats.
• Old windows: putty and glazing checked before painting.
• Wet methods for scraping, with chips collected on drop sheets.

Bungalows with weatherboards are covered in more detail on weatherboard and villa painting.

A peninsula in the harbour

The heritage review describes Bayswater as one of the peninsula “fingers” on the deeply indented, west-facing coast of the Devonport peninsula. With water on several sides of a narrow peninsula, a fair share of Bayswater and Belmont houses sit close to the harbour edge. Whether a given section falls in the building standard’s sea-spray zone depends on its own distance and setting; the paint-life notes set this out.

We look at each house on site before quoting.