House painting in the Glebe and Old Ottawa South

This is the part of the city where painting stops being simple. Much of the housing stock in the Glebe, Old Ottawa South and neighbouring Ottawa East predates 1940 and a good deal of it predates 1920. Plaster walls rather than drywall, oil-based trim under several generations of coating, and, in anything built before 1960, a real likelihood of lead-based paint.

Health Canada's guidance is the one to follow here: houses built before 1960 probably contain lead-based paint, and its advice is not to use sanders, heat guns or blowlamps to remove paint in older homes, because that produces lead-containing dust and fumes (Health Canada, Reduce your exposure to lead). In practice that means chemical stripping, wet methods, containment and a crew who have done it before, and it means a higher price per door and window than the same work in Barrhaven. A contractor who quotes a 1912 Glebe house at suburban rates has not understood the job.

Plaster is the other difference. It cracks along lath lines rather than at drywall joints, it does not take a modern filler the way drywall does, and a keyed plaster ceiling that has lost its keys needs to be reattached rather than skimmed. Exterior work runs into wood double-hung windows, deep painted wood trim and porch detail, all of it labour-dense and none of it comparable to spraying a modern siding elevation.