House Painters in Bathurst Manor, North York
Bathurst Manor sits on a plateau in the north end of Toronto, in the former city of North York. Finch Avenue West is the north edge, Sheppard Avenue West the south, Dufferin Street the west, the west branch of the Don River the east. Bathurst Street runs down the middle. It was farmland first, called Dublin Heights after the Dublin Farm near Sheppard and Dufferin. The cornerstone from the roughly 1872 Dublin Schoolhouse is still mounted at Dublin Heights Elementary and Middle School, 100 Bainbridge Avenue.
The houses started in 1954, built mostly by Delzotto and Sons, later Tridel, plus Probar Construction and Westdale Construction. The ads sold 6-room ranchers, 7-room split-levels and oversize 6-room bungalows, with tiled bathrooms, Youngstown steel kitchen cabinets and bonus closets, on lots of fifty to sixty feet. The Globe and Mail called it a place built at a decent human scale, with no house much grander or meaner than any other. Larger custom homes went up by the ravine on Blue Forest Drive at the tail end. The Balmoral pocket at Faywood and Joel Swirsky came later still.
One number changes how a house here gets painted. Not all of Bathurst Manor is from the fifties. The City of Toronto counts 6,418 private dwellings here: 36% built before 1960, 37% between 1961 and 1980. A 1956 bungalow and a 1974 build can sit two doors apart, and they do not get the same prep.
What Painting a Bathurst Manor Home Involves
Start with the walls. People hear "1950s house" and picture plaster over wood lath. Not here. Wood lath had given way to rock lath, a gypsum board base with plaster troweled over it, by the late 1930s, and drywall followed. So a wall in Bathurst Manor is drywall or plaster over gypsum lath, and we check which before we quote, because they patch differently. What they share is age. Sixty-plus years of settling leaves hairline cracks. Rolling over one hides it for a season, so we cut it open, fill it, then skim and prime it flat.
Then the wood. Ranch bungalows and side-splits are long and low, so they carry a lot of horizontal face: wide eaves, long fascia and soffit runs. Most mix brick with wood or stucco panels, and the wood takes the beating. Freeze and thaw lifts old paint at the seams, and shaded faces stay damp long enough to grow mildew. We wash, treat it, scrape back to sound, spot-prime, then coat.
Lead is the one nobody sees. Canada did not regulate lead in paint until 1976, and exterior paint took longer still, so exterior coats applied before 1990 can carry high levels. The safe rule is that any house built before 1980, and especially before 1960, has lead in the paint inside and out. In Bathurst Manor that covers most of the neighbourhood. It sits heaviest where the most durable paint went: window trim, baseboards, doors, banisters and porches. Intact paint is not the hazard. Dust is. So we never dry sand and never put a heat gun on it. We seal the area, keep the surface wet, run dust collection on power tools, and clean up with a HEPA vacuum.
Last, the season. Benjamin Moore rates its exterior paints from 35F to 100F and wants the surface more than 5F above the dew point. Toronto gives you that from late April to mid-October, so that is when we book it. See our interior painting and exterior painting.
Residential and Commercial Painting in Bathurst Manor
Most of our Bathurst Manor work is homes, much of it for long-time owners. The median age is 41.7, 17.4% of residents are 65 or older, and 66.2% of the housing is ground-related rather than apartments. The Globe and Mail found residents whose parents bought in 1957 and never thought about moving. Those homes are deep into their repaint cycles, and new builds are arriving, so owners come to us wanting to refresh rather than replace.
The other third, 33.8%, is 5-plus-storey buildings around the edges, and 2,805 households here rent. So we also do turnover work, suites repainted between tenants or before a sale, plus common areas. The bungalow and the apartment suite get the same crew and prep list.
The Painting Services We Offer in Bathurst Manor
The jobs we handle on a Bathurst Manor home, most on one visit.
Interior painting
Walls, ceilings, trim, doors and closets, with settling-crack repair first. Low-odour paint, so rooms are back in use same day.
Exterior painting
Wood siding, fascia, soffits, panels, trim and brick, washed, scraped and primed first. That is what carries the wood through a Toronto winter.
Cabinet painting
Doors off, degreased, sanded and sprayed. Some of these kitchens still have their original steel cabinets, and metal takes a bonding primer. See cabinet painting.
Drywall and plaster repair
Cracks, holes and water stains, cut out, skimmed flat and primed. See drywall and plaster repair.
Deck and fence staining
The wood on these fifty to sixty foot lots greys out fast. We wash it, let it dry, then stain it. See deck and fence staining.
Wallpaper removal
Score, steam, strip the glue, skim the wall smooth. Common in homes untouched since the first owners.
Ceiling painting
Flat, even ceilings, with water stains blocked so they do not bleed through.
Trim, doors and paneling
Baseboards, casings, doors, and the stained trim and paneling in the split-levels, deglossed and primed so new paint bonds.
Power washing
Dirt, chalk and mildew washed off first, so the coat grabs a clean surface.
Co Painting did an amazing job on our home interior. They were professional, punctual, and the quality of work exceeded our expectations.
Why choose us
Why Bathurst Manor Homeowners Choose Co Painting
Mid-century homes are our normal week
Settling cracks, plaster over gypsum lath, long low exteriors, weathered trim and panel-and-brick fronts are no surprise on site. We know where a house from this era hides a clean cut line and where it shows a bad one.
Lead-safe prep comes standard
On any pre-1980 house we treat lead as present and prep wet, contained and HEPA-vacuumed. No dry sanding, no heat gun. Default here, not a special request.
We know this neighbourhood
Wilmington Avenue, the custom homes on Blue Forest Drive, the Balmoral pocket by Faywood. We know where the low wide exteriors and long trim runs eat the hours, so the estimate holds.
The price is in writing and the work is backed
We look at the actual house and put the estimate in writing before we start. Insured and licensed in Ontario, rated 5.0 across 70 Google reviews, three-year warranty. If something we painted fails in that window, we come back.
Free Estimates in Bathurst Manor
We are a North York painting company at 25 St Dennis Drive The drive is about 16 km, roughly 20 minutes without traffic: Don Valley Parkway north, Highway 401 west, off at Yonge, then west on Sheppard Avenue West to Bathurst and Sheppard Plaza.
We paint the whole neighbourhood. Off Wilmington Avenue by the Irving W. Chapley Community Centre at 205 Wilmington. Up on Blue Forest Drive. Around William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate at 20 Tillplain Road, and north toward G. Ross Lord Park. Call or use the form and we come to you.
Co Painting, 25 St Dennis Drive, North York, ON M3C 1E6. Call (416) 319-8444.
FAQ
Bathurst Manor Painting Questions, Answered
My place is a 1950s bungalow off Wilmington Avenue. Do I have lead paint?
Assume yes. Canada did not regulate lead in paint until 1976, so treat any house built before 1980 as having it, and a pre-1960 house almost certainly does. Exterior coats from before 1990 can too. Intact paint is not the danger. Dust is. We never dry sand, never use a heat gun, and we HEPA-vacuum the cleanup.
My house was built in 1972, not the fifties. Does any of that still apply?
Yes, and this catches people out. Most of Bathurst Manor is not original fifties stock. The City of Toronto counts 37% of dwellings here as built between 1961 and 1980, against 36% before 1960. A 1972 house is still inside the pre-1980 window, so it gets the same lead-safe prep.
My walls keep cracking. Will the cracks come back after you paint?
Not if they are prepped right. These homes have settled for sixty-plus years, so hairline cracks come with the territory. A crack that is only filled and painted over opens again. We cut it out, fill it, skim and prime.
Can you paint the original steel kitchen cabinets, or do they have to be replaced?
We can. Some of these kitchens still have the Youngstown steel cabinets the houses were sold with. Metal needs a bonding primer so the finish grips. Doors come off and get sprayed, so no brush lines, and it costs far less than a new kitchen.
Can you paint the stained wood trim and paneling in my split-level?
Yes, common out here. Painting over stained or varnished wood is not a straight topcoat. We degloss, sand and prime with a bonding primer. On a pre-1980 house that trim is where the lead sits, so it gets wet prep.
Do you paint the apartment buildings around Bathurst Manor?
Yes. About a third of the homes here are in 5-plus-storey buildings around the edges, and 2,805 households rent. We do turnover work, suites repainted between tenants or before a sale, plus common areas.
When is the best time for exterior painting in Bathurst Manor?
Late April to mid-October. Benjamin Moore rates its exterior paints from 35F to 100F and wants the surface more than 5F above the dew point. The calendar fills early, so call ahead.
My exterior wood is peeling near the soffits. Can that be fixed, or does it need replacing?
Usually it can be fixed. On these long low rooflines the fascia and soffit runs take the weather, and peeling means old paint that never bonded or bare wood taking on water. We scrape back, prime and repaint. Replacing is a last resort.
See the Other Areas We Serve
Co Painting also serves the neighbourhoods bordering Bathurst Manor: Clanton Park south, Westminster-Branson east, Lansing southeast, Downsview southwest, York University Heights west.