Wilmington Capes, Ranches and Loading Docks

Wilmington is a town of postwar capes and ranches with kitchens two generations behind the rest of the house. That is the most common job here, and it is worth being specific about. Cabinet doors from the sixties and seventies are usually solid wood with a real profile, which is exactly what makes refinishing them worth doing instead of tearing them out. The doors come off and get labeled, then degreased, because thirty years of cooking film will reject any coating you put over it, then sanded, primed and sprayed in a controlled space rather than brushed in your kitchen. Boxes get done on site with the counters and floors masked properly. Beyond kitchens, these houses have modest square footage and low ceilings, which makes interior repainting quick, plus dormers and additions added later, which makes the exterior slow. Outside, the front steps and the walkway are usually concrete that has spalled along the nose from years of salt and plow scrape. Ranch chimney crowns crack. None of that can be quoted honestly from a photo.

Wilmington's commercial side is warehouses, flex space and light manufacturing, most of it clustered near the highway on Ballardvale Street and the drives around it. That work is nothing like painting an office. Walls are block or precast, ceilings are high enough to need lifts, and the floor has racking on it that somebody has to clear before we can reach anything. So the scope opens with what gets moved and by whom, and the schedule usually lands on a shutdown weekend or a plant holiday. Dock areas take the worst of the winter, since salt and slush ride in on every pallet jack, and the coating on a dock wall gives up long before the front office does. Front offices, break rooms and restrooms in these buildings get repainted after second shift. Along Route 38 the plazas and small businesses work the early morning and after close windows. Contractors doing tenant fit outs call us to run the clean in three passes so the finished space is not full of drywall dust on handover day.

What we take on in Wilmington

• 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 Wilmington 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.