Parking level and storefront unit painting in Beaverton, Brock

A mixed-⁠use building on a Beaverton main street

Brock is mostly farmland, but its three small centres, Beaverton on Lake Simcoe, Cannington inland and Sunderland to the south, each have a main street of older houses and storefronts. This project was a three-storey mixed-use building in Beaverton: retail units at street level, apartments above, and a parking level for the apartment tenants tucked under the building. Because the lot slopes away from the street, that parking level sits below the shops at the front but opens to the outside air at the back, where the drive ramp comes in.

The owner asked for two things. A ground-floor retail unit was empty and being renovated for a new tenant, and it needed every wall painted. The parking level, which had never been painted at all, was dark, stained and starting to show salt damage, and the owner wanted it brighter and easier to drive through.

Condition and the complications

The parking level

The walls and the square columns are all concrete block, and all of it was bare. Years of winter driving had left a grey-white tide line of road salt along the bottom of every wall, and wherever water had moved through the block, white efflorescence had bloomed across the face. Near the open end, where snow blows in and melts, the face of a column had flaked off at the base. Scaling like that can signal a deeper concrete problem, so we pointed it out to the owner and kept our own work there to cosmetic surface patching.

The bigger complication was temperature. The level is unheated and open at one end, so it follows the weather outside. Coatings for concrete need the surface, not just the air, to stay above a minimum temperature and comfortably above the dew point while they cure, which ruled out working in the colder months. The parking work was booked for a warm, dry stretch in summer.

The retail unit

The previous tenant had painted the unit in a bright orange and a deep green, screwed slatwall panels to the walls and stuck vinyl lettering beside the door. When the panels came off, they left rows of screw holes and patches of torn drywall paper.

Preparation and protection

Parking level, in order

1. The apartment tenants received written notice of which half of the level would be closed, and parked on the street or the side lot while their half was being worked on.
2. We swept and blew out the whole level, then scrubbed the salt lines and efflorescence with stiff brushes and a masonry cleaner, rinsing with a hose and squeegeeing the water to the floor drain.
3. The walls were left to dry with the open end and fans moving air through. Before priming, we checked the surface temperature and the humidity with a thermometer and hygrometer, and taped a few plastic squares to the block overnight to make sure no moisture was still coming through.
4. Small chips and voids in the block and the cosmetic damage on the columns were filled with a cement-based patching mortar and left to harden.
5. Electrical boxes, the sprinkler riser, the door to the stairs and the light fixtures were masked off with plastic and tape.

Retail unit, in order

1. The concrete floor was going to be covered with new flooring later, but it was still protected with drop cloths so paint would not get into the slab and spoil the adhesive bond.
2. Screw holes were filled; torn drywall paper was coated with a solvent-based sealer before skimming, so the paper would not swell and blister under the compound.
3. Glue left by the vinyl lettering was removed with an adhesive remover and the area washed clean.
4. The orange and green walls got a full coat of high-hiding primer, which makes it practical for a light finish to cover strong colours.
5. The wood trim around the inside of the storefront window was sanded and the joints caulked.

How each surface was painted

Bare block walls

Bare block is full of pinholes, and paint rolled straight onto it leaves a surface full of tiny voids. The first coat on the walls was a block filler, a thick, high-solids primer worked into the face with a heavy-nap roller and then brushed into the mortar joints. After it had cured for the time the manufacturer specifies, the yellow went over it: a masonry-grade waterborne acrylic, two full coats.

Block columns

The columns are block too, but their corners take the knocks from turning cars and several had chipped edges. Once the patching mortar on those corners had hardened, the repairs were spot-primed with an alkali-resistant masonry primer, the columns got the same block filler as the walls, and then the same two coats of yellow, so walls and columns read as one colour band.

Retail walls and trim

In the shop, the primed walls took two rolled coats of soft white scrubbable acrylic, in an eggshell sheen that cleans well around a checkout counter. The storefront window trim was brushed with two coats of semi-gloss enamel in the same white to keep the look simple, and the back storage room was done in a flat white.

Colour, light and what the owner chose

For the parking level, the owner first leaned toward white. We used sample pots from our free colour consultation to paint a stripe of white, a light grey and the yellow on neighbouring columns. Even freshly scrubbed, the white picked up grime from the floor within a few days, and the grey vanished against the concrete. The yellow stayed visible both near the open end, where daylight reaches in, and at the back under the fluorescent fixtures, and the owner went with it.

In the retail unit, the brief was a white that would not look stark. Several whites were brushed out near the storefront window and on the back wall, and checked in the morning, when the sun comes in from the street, and again in the evening under the new lighting. The warmest of them looked clean in both lights without turning yellow.

Keeping the building running

With apartment tenants coming and going above and shops open next door, we kept a tight footprint. Only the half of the parking level being worked on was closed, with tape and signs at the ramp, and the other half stayed open throughout. Each afternoon the hoses got coiled, the buckets emptied and the drop cloths folded into the van; a broom went over the concrete, and nothing was stored in the drive aisle overnight. The retail unit was swept and its debris bagged and removed at the close of every work day, so each morning began in a clean, clear space.

Looking after it from here

• When the snow season ends, hose the salt film off the bottom of the parking walls; left in place, it slowly dulls and breaks down the coating.
• Watch the walls nearest the ramp. If white powder starts pushing through the paint again, water is getting into the block, and the source should be found before any touch-up.
• Keep the labelled cans of yellow, shop white and trim enamel indoors and away from frost, as frozen latex paint is usually ruined.
• In the retail unit, scuffs at the counter come off with a damp sponge and mild soap; avoid scouring pads on the eggshell.

Why this suits buildings in Brock

Buildings on the east shore of Lake Simcoe take hard freeze-thaw winters and wind off the lake, and unheated spaces like this parking level only accept coatings in the warmer months. Planning the outdoor-exposed work for summer, testing moisture before priming and choosing coatings made for masonry are the parts of commercial painting that matter most here. Small-town businesses in Beaverton, Cannington and Sunderland can also book evening or weekend work so they stay open. Since 2010 our painters have looked after homes and shops around Toronto, the GTA and Durham Region, and you can see what else we do on the Brock Township painting page.

If you own a storefront or a mixed-use building in the township, send us the details and we will prepare a written, itemized quote.