Historic house and window painting in Cleveland Park, Washington, DC 20008

Frame houses, shingles and wide porches off Connecticut Avenue

Cleveland Park took its name from Grover Cleveland's summer home, which stood here in the 1880s. Development followed in the 1890s and early 1900s, and many of the first houses were designed by architects in Queen Anne, Shingle and Colonial Revival styles. Streets like Newark, Highland Place and Macomb hold many of them, along with later Foursquares and brick houses from the 1920s. The neighborhood sits between Rock Creek Park and Wisconsin Avenue, with the National Cathedral close by and the Cleveland Park Metro on Connecticut Avenue.

These houses carry more painted wood than almost anywhere else in DC. Wood clapboard on lower floors, cedar shingles above, deep bracketed eaves, turned porch posts and balustrades, and dozens of original wood windows per house. Many windows still hold wavy old glass set in glazing putty. That much wood means repainting is a serious job, and how it's done decides how long it lasts.

Most of the neighborhood lies inside the Cleveland Park Historic District. That shapes some decisions, but it rarely gets in the way of a careful repaint. Inside, the same houses often need plaster repair before walls and ceilings are repainted, and the streets running northwest toward Tenleytown hold many pre-war houses from the same decades.

What a century of weather does to Cleveland Park's painted wood

Older frame houses show the same patterns of wear, and most of them start at the windows.

• Dried and cracked glazing putty

  Putty holding the glass dries out, cracks and falls away. Water then runs into the sash joints and softens the wood. We remove failed putty, prime the rabbet and reglaze before painting.

• Sashes painted to the stops

  Repeated coats seal sashes to their stops and parting beads, so windows no longer open. We cut the paint lines, free the sash and paint so it still slides afterward.

• Shingles weathered on the south side

  Cedar shingles on sun-facing walls dry out and split, and paint lifts in strips along the grain. We scrape, replace split shingles and prime with a stain-blocking primer before painting.

• Peeling at deep cornices

  Wide eaves and bracketed cornices hold moisture from gutters above. Paint fails along the crown moldings and around brackets. We check the gutters with you and repair soft trim before painting.

• Alligatoring from oil under latex

  Decades of oil paint followed by latex coats often crack in a scaly pattern. Spot scraping won't hold here. Those areas need full removal using lead-safe methods before priming.

What the Cleveland Park Historic District generally means for a repaint

These points describe how things generally work in DC historic districts. Rules can change, so check with the DC Historic Preservation Office for your address before work starts.

• Repainting already-painted wood, including a change of color, is generally not reviewed.
• Painting brick or stone that has never been painted generally does need review first.
• Replacing original windows, rather than repairing them, may need review, so restoring sashes is often the simpler path.
• Replacing porch posts or railings with a different design may need review, while matching repairs generally do not.
• Street parking near Connecticut Avenue is tight, so we often ask DDOT for temporary no-parking signs in front of the house.
• Tall houses on sloped lots may need scaffolding on one or two sides, which we plan at the walkthrough.

How we restore and repaint Cleveland Park windows

Window work is the most typical project here, either on its own or as part of a full exterior.

1. Coat 01

   Count and grade every window

   We look at each window and sort it as paint-only, reglaze or repair. That gives you a clear count and a price per window, typically $135 to $290 per sash depending on condition.

2. Coat 02

   Set up lead-safe containment

   Old window paint almost always contains lead. We lay plastic inside and out, wet scrape and use HEPA vacuums for cleanup, following EPA RRP lead-safe practices through our lead-safe painting setup.

3. Coat 03

   Free and repair sashes

   Sashes painted shut are cut free. Loose joints are reglued, small rot is consolidated and filled, and sash cords can be replaced if they've broken.

4. Coat 04

   Reglaze where putty failed

   Failed putty is removed, the wood is primed, and new glazing compound goes in. It needs time to skin over before it can take paint, so we schedule around that.

5. Coat 05

   Prime and paint

   Bare wood gets an oil-based primer. Two finish coats follow, with a slight lap onto the glass to seal the putty line. Moving parts are left clean so the sash runs.

6. Coat 06

   Check every window works

   We open and close each window with you before we leave. Any that stick get freed again on the spot.

Most requested here

• Historic Home Painting

  Pre-war plaster, old-growth wood trim and original windows painted with methods that respect the house.

• Window Sash & Trim Painting

  Glazing checked, sashes and frames painted, and windows left operable instead of painted shut.

• Exterior House Painting

  Siding, trim, soffits and porches scraped, primed and painted on a schedule built around DC weather.

• Lead-Safe Painting

  Containment, wet scraping and HEPA cleanup when older paint is disturbed in homes built before 1978.

• Porch Painting

  Porch floors, steps, columns and haint-blue ceilings painted with floor-rated enamels that handle traffic.

• Wood Rot Repair

  Soft sills, fascia and porch trim cut out or consolidated and rebuilt so new paint is not wasted.

• Plaster Repair

  Cracked and sagging plaster re-anchored and skim coated so pre-war walls stay plaster, not drywall.

• Interior House Painting

  Walls, ceilings and trim in occupied homes, with furniture moved, floors covered and rooms back in use each night.

Close by

ZIP codes we cover here: 20008. We also paint in these neighboring areas.

• Tenleytown, Washington, DC
• Georgetown, Washington, DC
• Chevy Chase, Washington, DC
• Crestwood, Washington, DC

Questions from Cleveland Park homeowners