Exterior paint costs in Detroit

If your Detroit house sits in a local historic district, the city has already done some of your color homework. The Historic District Commission sorts 23 architectural styles into six color systems, lettered A through F, covering everything from mid-1800s vernacular houses to Prairie-style homes and bungalows. You don't have to use one. But exterior painting in a district does need HDC approval, and repainting areas that were already painted can likely be approved by staff. Email them your address and a photo of the front, and they'll tell you which style and color system fit.

Brick is where the answer changes. Masonry that was never painted historically shouldn't be painted, and that request likely goes to the full commission instead of staff. The same guidance asks that paint not bury moldings, trim or eave brackets.

Outside the districts, the age of the house matters more. Nearly two of every three homes in the metro went up before 1980. EPA's rule reaches even a one-person shop: a painting business working on a home built before 1978 has to be certified as a lead-safe firm. On an older frame house with decades of trim paint, ask to see that certificate before anyone starts scraping.