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. Full window, restoration, and storm pricing is on our published pricing page.
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 from our published pricing page; rebuilt decorative pieces and porch doors are 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. Both tiers and the wash are on our published pricing page; a lift for three-story work and materials are billed at cost on top.
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.
Price your own project with the instant estimator, check our full published prices, see our exterior painting service in Cleveland, or browse more guides.