Virginia Beach
Painters for Great Neck
Brick houses where all the paint is on the trim, under oaks that keep the north side damp.
The neighborhoods off Great Neck Road — Baycliff, Church Point, Wolfsnare, Great Neck Point and the streets running down to Broad Bay and Linkhorn Bay — are mostly brick colonials and ranches built between the 1960s and the 1980s, on established lots under mature oaks and pines.
That description changes what a repaint means. The walls are brick. Almost all the paint on the house is on trim, and trim is the fussiest, most detail-dependent surface there is.
A trim job is a caulking job
On a brick colonial the paintable surface is window casings, sills, the door surround, shutters, soffits, fascia, rake boards, porch columns and the garage door. Nearly all of that meets brick somewhere, and every one of those joints is a place water can get behind the wood.
Old caulk at those joints has usually gone hard and split. Painting over split caulk hides it for one season. Cutting it out, filling the gap properly and then painting is what actually stops the sill from rotting, and it is the single biggest difference between a five-year trim job and a fifteen-year one.
The cut line where painted wood meets brick is also the thing you look at every time you walk up to the house. It is done by hand and it either looks deliberate or it does not.
Mature trees are a mixed blessing
The oaks are why people buy here. They also mean the north and east elevations get very little direct sun, stay damp after rain, and grow mildew in the film that sits on the surface. On a brick house this shows on the soffits and the fascia first.
Mildew has to be treated and rinsed, not just pressure washed, or it grows back up through the new coat. Overhanging limbs also drop debris onto wet paint, which is a real scheduling constraint rather than a theoretical one.
Interiors: formal rooms, a lot of trim, a lot of white
Houses of this era in Great Neck have chair rail, crown molding, wainscot, six-panel doors and formal dining rooms. That is a large amount of trim linear footage, and trim is where a fast interior job shows immediately — in the cut line at the wall, in brush marks along a rail, and in doors that were rolled instead of finished properly.
It is also where two coats matter most. A single coat of white on trim over an older, yellowed white does not cover. It goes on looking thin and it stays looking thin.
Straight answer
The part everybody underestimates
Homeowners here often ask for "just the trim," expecting it to be a small job because the square footage is small. It is not a small job. Trim is almost entirely edges, and edges are where all the labor is: cutting out failed caulk, sanding back ridges from previous coats, spot-priming bare wood, and cutting a clean line against brick by hand along the whole elevation.
The paint on a trim package is a rounding error. The preparation is the job.
Great Neck questions
Painting in Great Neck, answered
Can you paint only the trim on a brick house?
Yes, and on a Great Neck colonial that is usually the whole scope. It is more labor than people expect, because trim is almost all edges and the work is in cutting out old caulk, sanding, spot-priming and cutting a clean line against the brick.
Why does the north side of my house look dirty a year after painting?
Under heavy tree cover the shaded elevations stay damp and grow mildew in the surface film. If it was pressure washed but never treated, it comes back through the new coat. It needs treating and rinsing, then a dry wall before painting.
Do you paint front doors and shutters separately?
Yes. Doors and shutters are small square footage and enormous curb impact, and they are often the first thing people want done. Shutters get taken down where it makes sense so the edges and the wall behind them get finished.
Get a Great Neck estimate
Pick a time that suits you, or tell him about the project and he will call you back. Either way he comes out, looks at what is actually there, writes down what he would do, and gives you a number.