Exterior paint costs in Worcester

Worcester's signature house is the three-decker, and that shape decides a lot about painting it. The National Register nomination for the city's three-deckers says they dominate most of Worcester's pre-1930 neighborhoods, built over the fifty years from 1880 to 1930. The typical one is wood, with clapboard siding, a low hip roof and a full front porch, often stacked three tiers high. Bands of wood shingles were often painted in colors that contrasted with the rest of the house.

Three tiers of porches means rails, spindles, columns and ceilings, the fiddly part of any paint job. The nomination also says most three-deckers ended up wrapped in aluminum or vinyl siding, and a lot of the original trim was stripped or covered in the process. If your painter takes some of that siding off, what turns up underneath can change the scope.

Winters here bring something like 67 inches of snow, so exterior work waits for the thaw and wraps up before it all comes back.

If your three-decker still has its shingle bands, painting them a contrasting color is true to how these houses were first done, and it's extra cutting-in for the crew.