Concord Interiors: Plaster, Wide Trim, Brushwork

On a Concord house the previous repair is usually the first thing that has to come out. The center of town and the roads running off it hold Georgian, Federal and mid nineteenth century houses, and most have been patched by several sets of hands, so one wall can carry a skim coat over a bad patch over an original crack that never stopped moving. That gets opened, taped and bridged rather than skimmed again, or the same line returns the first winter the heat comes on. The trim in these houses is the expensive part: deep baseboards, paneled doors, wide casings and small paned sash whose glazing putty has gone chalky and dropped out in places. Sash gets reglazed before it gets coated, because paint over a failed joint only traps the water behind it. Floors are wide board pine and old strip oak with limited thickness left above the tongue, so the honest answer is sometimes a screen and recoat instead of a full sanding. Anything coated before 1978 gets a lead question first. Outside, fieldstone walls, granite terraces and brick steps have all been shifted by frost and now hold water instead of shedding it.

The center runs on foot traffic from early coffee until well after dinner, and the buildings around Monument Square and down Main Street and Walden Street stand shoulder to shoulder with no back alley to work out of. Access becomes the first line of the scope instead of an afterthought: where the truck stands, which hours the sidewalk can carry a ladder, and when the staging comes down. Shops get glass and entry floors before opening, kitchens take the hours once service ends, and the offices and practices above the retail go after six. The Thoreau Street blocks by the depot and West Concord along Commonwealth Avenue move at a different pace, more services and small professional suites than visitors, and far easier to load into. Out at Nine Acre Corner the buildings are larger and sit on their own lots, which makes a daytime shutdown possible where a tenant can take one. Trustees and the people managing apartment buildings here would rather put the hallway repaint, the stair treads, the cleaning of shared space and the brick at the front door on a single scope, since moving a separate contractor into a tight village center costs something every time.

What we take on in Concord

• House cleaning, deep cleans and recurring visits
• Move in and move out cleaning for owners and landlords
• Post construction and renovation handover cleaning
• Pre sale cleaning before the photos and the first showing
• Interior and exterior painting, and cabinet refinishing
• Repointing, chimneys, steps, walkways and patios
• Pressure washing for siding, driveways, decks and storefronts
• Offices, retail, practices and restaurants around your hours
• Common areas and unit turnovers for property managers

Getting a price

Every quote for Concord starts with somebody standing in the actual place. Square footage over the phone is a guess, and on a wall it is worse than a guess, because the failure depth only shows when you put a hand on the joint. You get the scope written out area by area and one number for the job, usually the same business day.