Ohio City and Tremont hold the oldest painted houses in Cleveland — Italianate and Queen Anne Victorians from the 1870s and 80s, workers’ cottages, and the doubles that filled in around them through 1910. Most of both neighborhoods sit inside a Cleveland Landmarks Commission historic district, and that changes the job in two useful ways: the exterior has to keep its original parts, and the parts are usually worth keeping. Here is how we approach one, and what each piece costs.
Landmark review: what it does and does not cover
Inside a designated district, exterior changes visible from the street — removing or replacing windows, trim, porches, siding — go through the Landmarks Commission for a certificate of appropriateness. Repainting in itself generally does not, and the city does not dictate colors the way Shaker Heights does. So the practical rule for a painting job is simple: keep the original wood windows, brackets, and porch parts, and restore rather than replace. Confirm the current process with the city’s planning office before any removal, and photograph everything before the first scraper touches it.
The windows are the job
A Tremont Victorian can carry twenty or more tall double-hung wood sash, often with the original wood storms. Decades of paint over failed glazing is the norm. We treat each opening as its own line: sound paint gets a repaint, failed paint gets restoration, and every storm and screen comes off the house for either.
- Repaint window, one color: $75; two colors (sash and frame different): $150
- Restored window, sash and trim — scrape to sound wood, sand, re-glaze, prime, two brushed coats: $506
- Storm window or screen refinished off the house: $75 per piece ($225 for two storms and a screen)
- Complete restored unit, sash plus three storm pieces: $731
Brackets, porches, and the gingerbread
Italianate eave brackets, turned porch posts, spindle rails, and fish-scale shingle in the gables are what make these houses worth the district. When a bracket has rotted through, replacement stock does not exist; we trace the original, cut new blanks in our shop to the same profile, and paint them to match, the way we did on a 1920s eave in Cleveland Heights. Trim runs are priced by the foot, porch pieces and doors by the piece.
- Soffit, fascia, eave, and trim runs, scraped, primed, two coats: $150 per linear foot in two colors, $125 in one
- Storm door refinished: $300
- Rebuilt decorative pieces quoted per piece from the tracing — we show you the blank before it goes up
Siding: clapboard, shingle, and the aluminum wrap
Original clapboard and shingle that has been kept painted is the standard tier. Clapboard peeling to bare wood — common on the west and north sides — is the restoration tier, and it is the single biggest swing in the price of a Tremont exterior. Many doubles were wrapped in aluminum mid-century; that is standard-tier work with the right primer, and it repaints for a fraction of what re-siding costs.
- Standard siding, aluminum or sound wood, wash-prep-two coats: $281 per 100 square feet
- Wood siding full restoration, scrape, sand, prime, caulk, two coats: $2,700 per 100 square feet
- Whole-house pressure wash, first on every job: $1,500 flat
- Lift for three-story work billed at cost; materials at cost on top of every line
For owners of doubles and rentals
A lot of Ohio City and Tremont housing is owner-occupied on one floor and rented on the other, or fully rented. Per-unit pricing lets you put the exterior on a spreadsheet before we meet: siding square footage by tier, windows by condition, storm pieces, trim feet, wash. The instant estimator on this site runs the same numbers in two minutes, and we schedule around tenants. Send photos of the worst elevation to 440-382-5701 and most Cleveland estimates are back within 24 hours, at the prices you just read.
More guides on the Cavelli Painting blog, or explore our services and service areas.