House painting in Grey Lynn

The Surrey Hills Estate, east to west

Grey Lynn was subdivided as the Surrey Hills Estate between 1883 and 1886, and council’s special character survey calls it the region’s largest Victorian-era residential subdivision. Because it filled up over many years, the house style shifts as you walk west.

Workers’ cottages and Victorian villas sit mainly in the eastern part of the estate; transitional villas and bungalows dominate the west. For painting that means two different jobs. Eastern villas bring fretwork, sash windows and the oldest paint. Western bungalows bring wider boards, exposed rafters, casement windows and sometimes timber shingles, which take paint differently from boards.

Elgin Street and fretwork worth keeping

The Elgin Street historic heritage area describes single-storey houses with weatherboard cladding, corrugated iron roofs and prominent brick chimneys, from late-1880s cottages and villas to Edwardian bay villas of the 1900s. Their timber ornament runs from simple forms to fine Victorian Gothic fretwork.

The same statement notes that small changes and lost detail are common in part of the street, which it sees as a chance for restoration. A repaint is often when missing brackets or finials are noticed. Replacing joinery is a carpentry job, but the painter can prime and match new pieces so they disappear into the old.

• Fretwork and brackets: hand scraped and brushed, never water blasted.
• Brick chimneys: left unpainted unless they already are.
• Stone walls and picket fences out front: covered while the house is prepped.