What is the cost to repaint a Tudor-style Ottawa home with multiple trim colours?

Tudor-style homes are genuinely one of the more complex exterior painting projects you'll encounter in Ottawa, and the cost reflects that complexity. Expect to budget $8,000 to $18,000 or more for a full exterior repaint of a typical Ottawa Tudor, depending on size, condition, and how many distinct trim colours you're working with.

The reason Tudor homes sit at the top of the pricing range comes down to their defining architectural features. The exposed decorative half-timbering — those dark wood or faux-wood beams set against stucco infill panels — requires meticulous cut-in work and careful masking to keep colour boundaries crisp. A standard two-storey home might have 40 to 60 linear metres of timber framing that needs to be painted separately from the stucco, plus window surrounds, fascia, soffits, decorative brackets, and often a contrasting front door and garage trim. Each colour transition multiplies labour time significantly. Where a simple vinyl-sided bungalow might take two painters three days, a Tudor with three or four trim colours can easily run two painters eight to twelve days.

Surface type matters enormously here. If the stucco panels are original to the home — common in Ottawa's older Glebe, Westboro, and Manor Park neighbourhoods where Tudor Revival was popular from the 1920s through the 1950s — you're dealing with a porous, textured surface that drinks paint. Elastomeric masonry coatings ($80 to $120 per gallon) are the right product choice for Ottawa stucco because they flex with our brutal freeze-thaw cycles rather than cracking. The half-timbering itself, whether real wood or a composite material, typically gets an alkyd or hybrid alkyd like Benjamin Moore Impervo or a premium exterior alkyd for the depth and durability that dark trim colours demand.

Preparation on older Tudor homes is where costs can escalate quickly. Ottawa homes from the interwar period often have layers of old paint on the timbers, and any peeling or flaking needs to be scraped, sanded, and primed before topcoats go on. If the home was built before 1960, lead paint testing is mandatory before any sanding or scraping begins — this is non-negotiable under Ontario Regulation 278/05, and a professional abatement approach may be required if lead is present.

Seasonal timing is also critical. The stucco panels should not be painted until overnight temperatures are consistently above 10°C — realistically late May through September in Ottawa. Elastomeric coatings are particularly sensitive to cold application temperatures and need adequate cure time before the first cold snap.

For a project of this scope and complexity, you can browse painting contractors with exterior masonry and heritage-style experience through the Ottawa Construction Network directory at justynrookcontracting.com/directory. Get at least three written quotes that specify the exact products, number of coats on each surface type, and how trim colour transitions will be handled — that level of detail in a quote tells you a lot about a contractor's experience with this kind of work.