Service Area
Duluth. Old and new, block by block.
I'm Pedro. Duluth is one of the few towns around here where I can walk from a hundred-year-old house to a townhome that went up last year in about five minutes. Those are two different jobs, and I treat them that way. When you call, you talk to me.
The Older Streets
Century-old wood doesn't forgive shortcuts.
Step off the Town Green onto the residential streets and the houses change. More land, more porch, more character—and a lot of original wood that has been standing through Georgia summers since before anybody reading this was born. Trim has settled. Sills have taken water. There are usually four or five coats of paint under the one you're looking at, and at least one of them is failing underneath.
On a house like that, prep is the job. Scraping back to sound wood, sanding the edges so the new paint doesn't telegraph every ridge, priming anything bare, replacing the piece of trim that's gone soft instead of caulking over it. It's slower and it's not the part anyone photographs, but it's the difference between paint that lasts and paint that peels off in sheets in three years. I'd rather scrape it properly than paint over a problem and hand you a bill for it.
The New Builds
New construction has its own problems.
Downtown Duluth has been filling in for years now—townhomes and higher-density housing going up feet away from buildings that have been there a century, because there isn't much land left to spread out on. Parsons Alley kept a 1904 bank and an old church standing and built around them. That's the town in one block: old and new sharing a wall.
Newer doesn't mean easier. Builder finishes go on thin and fast, so the first repaint is often the first real coat that house has had. Drywall moves while a building settles, and hairline cracks show up at the corners in the first couple of years—those need to be cut, taped, and floated, not just filled. Access is tighter with a shared wall and a neighbor six feet away, so I plan around it and keep the mess contained. And if you're one unit in a row, the color has to land on the money or your house is the one everybody notices.
Services
What I do in Duluth.
Whichever kind of house you're in, the work starts the same way: I come look at it honestly and tell you what it actually needs, which is sometimes less than you expected. Duluth is one stop on my regular run through Gwinnett—you can see the rest of the towns I cover on the service areas page.
Photo neededOlder home on a residential street near downtown Duluth — Pedro scraping and prepping trim before paint
Questions
Questions from
Duluth homeowners
I do, and I like them. I'll be honest with you though—on a house that age the painting is the short part. Scraping, sanding, priming bare wood, and fixing whatever the last coat was hiding is most of the work. That takes longer than a new house, and I'd rather tell you that up front than rush it and have you looking at the same problem in two years.
Free Estimates
Call Pedro.
Hundred-year-old wood or a townhome that's barely broken in—give me a call and I'll come take a look. Honest estimate, no pressure, no obligation.