Clearwater is in our name for a reason.

Two Clearwaters, two kinds of prep

Clearwater is really two towns. There is the beach and the Intracoastal side west of the Memorial Causeway, where condos, rentals and waterfront homes take salt spray straight off the Gulf. Then there is the inland side, from downtown out through Countryside and up to the Safety Harbor line, where the housing is block and stucco on quiet streets.

On the beach side, salt sits on the wall and dew pulls it into the surface every night. It works at the coating and it goes after every piece of metal on the house, from railings to the fasteners in the fascia. A rust streak down a fresh wall is nearly always something metal above it nobody dealt with first.

Inland, it is the usual Pinellas story. Builder paint that has gone chalky on the south and west walls, hairline cracks at the window corners, and mildew on the north side under the trees. Both kinds of house get a wash first, and the beach side wash has to rinse salt out of the wall rather than only lift dirt off it.

• Salt rinsed out of the surface on beach side homes
• Metal railings and fixtures dealt with before the walls
• Chalk checked on the west wall of every inland house
• Condo and rental turns priced with a finish date
• Association color approval in hand before we start

Condos, rentals and the turn between tenants

Clearwater has more rental units than most of the county, and a lot of our work is the turn between tenants. A unit gets its walls, ceilings and doors done, the drywall dings patched, and the whole thing handed back ready for a listing photo.

Landlords are a big part of our reviews. Matthew Hill wrote: "I've had them paint a couple rental properties for me and they do a fantastic job! On time, polite and unmatched workmanship!" Macomb Rental wrote: "Hired Alban to paint my rentals and he did a phenomenal job."

A vacant unit has a date on it and a mortgage running while it sits empty. We know that, so a rental estimate has a start date and a finish date on it, and the paint goes on in an order that gets the unit photographed and listed as early as possible.

Countryside, and the HOA color form

Countryside and the newer neighborhoods north of it are mostly homes from the seventies onward inside associations with a color palette and a form. Painting first and asking after can mean paying for the same house twice, so on any home with architectural rules we get the color approved in writing before a truck shows up.

We help you pick colors that live inside your palette, write them the way the board wants to see them, and wait for the letter. Boards want a form, the color names and codes, and sometimes a physical sample. It takes as long as it takes, and it is worth doing in that order.

The houses themselves are usually on their first or second real repaint over builder paint. One thin sprayed coat is why a house from the nineties can look older than one from the seventies that was repainted properly. Two real coats over real prep makes it a different house.

Getting a price in Clearwater

Call (586) 201-9682 or send the form. We will walk all four sides of the house, look at the water side as carefully as the street side, and put a written number on it with the product and the coats named. There is no charge for the look.

If you are on the beach side, say so when you call. It changes the wash, it changes what we recommend for a coating, and it changes how the metal on the house gets handled. All three belong on the estimate rather than showing up as a surprise.