A corner suite on the Etobicoke waterfront
On Etobicoke’s southeast shore, the towers of Humber Bay Shores rise right at the water, close to where the Humber River meets Lake Ontario. This suite is a two-bedroom-plus-den corner unit with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, so the living room looks out to the water and the city at once. The walls are drywall, the ceilings are concrete with a sprayed stipple texture, and the floors are a dark brown plank.
The owners bought the suite after a previous owner had repainted it, and inherited the result: a navy bedroom, a red feature wall in the living room, and a lot of careless work around the edges. They wanted the whole suite in a soft white, with the den in a pale warm grey as a quiet contrast, and the previous mess cleaned up properly. They were living in the suite during the work.
Correcting an earlier paint job
Most of what we found was the result of rushing. Paint had been rolled over the edges of the aluminum window frames and onto the balcony door track. The cut line at the ceiling wandered up into the stipple texture by as much as a finger width in places, so the white ceiling had a ragged band of red or navy along it. Baseboards had drips and runs, door casings had roller marks with lint in them, and several outlet covers had been painted in place.
Beyond those fixes, the colour change itself was a test. Navy and red are two of the most stubborn colours to cover with white, and a suite with windows on two sides shows every bit of uneven coverage in daylight.
Condo living added its own limits. Lakeshore towers commonly keep renovation work to weekdays within set hours, expect loading to use a reserved slot on the service elevator, and want corridors protected whenever anything is carried through, so the plan followed that pattern.
Preparation in the building and the suite
Common areas
The owners reserved the service elevator for our loading times. Each workday, padding went up in the elevator cab and a runner covered the hallway carpet as far as our door. Paint and tools were kept inside the suite, never in the corridor, and the protection was removed before the end of the working day.
Inside the suite
- Floors were covered edge to edge, and furniture was moved and covered in sections so the owners could keep using the kitchen and one bedroom at all times.
- Outlet covers and switch plates were removed; the painted-over ones were cleaned or replaced.
- Window and door frames were masked after cleaning.
Cleaning the frames
Old paint on the aluminum window frames and the balcony door track was softened where needed and lifted with plastic razor scrapers, which take paint off metal without scratching it. The tracks were vacuumed so the door slides freely again.
Fixing the ceiling line
To get a straight line where the wall meets a stipple ceiling, we drew a narrow scraping tool along the edge of the ceiling, removing a thin strip of texture just a few millimetres wide. That gives a flat edge to cut against. The old coloured band along the edge of the ceiling was spot-primed and touched up with ceiling white before the walls were cut in.
Trim and repairs
Drips and runs on baseboards and casings were sanded level, lint-filled roller texture was sanded smooth, and gaps at the top of baseboards were caulked. Anchor holes and dents were filled with lightweight spackle and spot-primed.
Priming the dark colours
The navy bedroom and the red feature wall each took a full coat of grey-tinted high-hide primer. Grey covers deep colours more effectively than plain white primer, and over it two coats of white cover cleanly.
Painting the suite
Walls
All walls were cut in by hand first, using a fine sash brush along the new clean ceiling edge, the window returns and the trim. They were then rolled with short-nap rollers, which lay down a smooth finish on condo drywall. Two coats of soft white eggshell went on through the living area, bedrooms and hall, and the second coat waited for the interval printed on the can. The den took two coats of pale warm grey in the same eggshell.
Trim and doors
Baseboards, door casings and interior doors took a pair of white semi-gloss coats, each laid off in long, even brush strokes, with the doors painted in place on both faces.
The balcony door and window returns
The drywall returns around the windows had the worst of the earlier roller marks and some lint stuck in the paint. They were sanded smooth, wiped and given two coats of the soft white by brush and small roller, so the edges against the frames stay crisp when you look along the glass. The trim around the balcony door was handled the same way.
Paint choice
Because the owners were living there, all paint used was Zero‑VOC. With a corner suite’s windows only partly opening, it kept the smell to a minimum through the job.
Choosing the white and the den grey
Corner suites get light from two directions, and the light off the lake is bright and often cool. At the colour consultation we brushed swatches from sample pots on both window walls and inside the darker den, and the owners checked them in the morning and again after sunset. A pure white looked hard against the water view on a sunny morning, while a soft white with a slight warm undertone held up in both strong daylight and lamplight. For the den, a pale warm grey from the same family gave the room a cozier feel without breaking away from the rest of the suite.
The living room now reads as one clean white space around the two walls of glass, with sharp lines along the ceiling and window frames, and the den sits off it in soft grey.
Keeping the suite liveable during the work
Since the owners were home, the work moved in sections: the den and second bedroom first, then the living area, then the primary bedroom. At the end of each workday, floors were vacuumed, furniture went back in usable positions, brushes and rollers were cleaned in a closed bucket kit, and the hall runner and cab padding were taken down.
Looking after the new paint
- Give the eggshell a few weeks to cure before wiping it, then use a soft cloth and mild soap.
- Strong sun through a corner suite’s glass can fade fabrics more than paint, but keep an eye on any wall that gets direct afternoon light.
- For touch-ups, the white, the den grey and the trim enamel each sit in a marked can down in your locker.
- Keep the balcony door track clean so the frame paint is not scraped by grit.
- If hairline cracks appear at the window returns, they can be caulked and touched up.
Why this suits Humber Bay Shores suites
Towers along the Etobicoke lakeshore bring condo rules on elevator reservations and work hours, and their suites have long runs of glass that show every cut line. Our condo painting service works within those rules and pays close attention to the edges, with at least two finish coats on walls and trim. Lakeshore suites and houses alike have been part of our GTA work since 2010; for more about painting in this part of the city, see our Etobicoke painting page, or read about our painters across Toronto more generally. If your suite needs a repaint or a clean-up of earlier work, request a written, itemized quote.
