Old walls do not behave like new ones
Plaster and lath is the first thing I expect in the century houses around Main Street. It is harder than drywall and far more brittle, so a screw driven in without care cracks a patch the size of your hand. I drill a pilot hole, keep the pressure light and use fixings meant for old walls. Where a room was strapped and boarded over at some point, there can be an inch of dead air behind the surface before anything solid shows up.
Movement is the other habit of these houses. Frames sit out of square, floors lean towards the middle of the room, and door tops rub through the humid months. Planing the door is usually the wrong answer, because by January it fits again. Shifting a hinge, packing a shim behind a plate or moving the strike is what actually solves it.
The jobs people here call about
Some of the list is the age of the building and some of it is simply life going on. Kitchens and bathrooms in the 1980s streets off Village Parkway are on their second set of taps by now. Family houses in Angus Glen, Cachet and Bridle Trail want mounting, shelving and assembly more than repair. A single visit in Unionville often mixes the two.
- Plaster patched, sanded and painted so the repair disappears
- Heavy mirrors and artwork hung on old walls without cracking them
- Interior doors adjusted so they close in every season
- Taps, shower heads and toilets swapped like for like
- Televisions mounted with the cables run out of sight
- Flat-pack wardrobes and desks built and anchored back to the wall
- Backsplash tile, caulking and cabinet handles freshened up
Condos and the newer streets
Downtown Markham, the towers off Highway 7 and the newer town homes bring the opposite problem. Studs land where you expect them and the walls take a fixing without argument. Work there is about finishing what the builder left behind: the television still on the floor since moving day, the closet with a single rod in it, the mirror wrapped up in the garage.
Buildings with a concierge usually want the service elevator booked and a slot agreed, and several allow drilling only during set hours. Give me the address when you call and that gets arranged ahead of the day rather than at the front desk.
Pricing, and where I stop
Quotes are free and carry no obligation. You will have a fixed price or an hourly rate agreed before anything starts. Materials come with receipts, or you buy your own if you prefer a particular brand. Photos with your first message speed everything up, especially in the old houses, where the wall itself is the real question.
Outside work on the heritage streets is a special case. Changing windows, doors or cladding in the conservation district can need approval from the Town first, so I keep to like-for-like repairs there and say plainly when a job needs that conversation. Anything belonging to a licensed electrician or plumber, such as new wiring or a moved drain, goes to one of them.
