Which side of the river we cover
Piedmont grew up around shoals on the Saluda River, and the river is also the county line. The east bank is Greenville County and the west bank is Anderson County. We work on the Greenville County side, which reaches toward Greenville along the Piedmont Highway (SC 20), with I-85 and I-185 a short drive away.
The mill and the houses it built
The Piedmont Manufacturing Company was founded in 1873, and its first mill started running in 1876 on the east bank, at the south end of Main Street. A second mill followed across the river in 1888. Because the mill sat out in the country, the company built a whole village for its workers: houses, schools and churches. In the 1950s the village houses were sold, many of them to the families living in them. After a fire in 1983, the mill’s tower is what remains of the first mill.
Mill houses are simple frame houses. Many have been through a lot of paint jobs, and some have been covered with vinyl along the way. On the ones that still have wood siding, the usual problems are paint peeling in sheets, bare wood at the bottom boards where rain splashes red clay back up, and porch floors and railings that take the most weather. Our wood siding page explains the prep. Every exterior job includes a pressure wash and two coats.
Inside, these houses have small rooms, lots of doors and trim for their size, and walls that have been patched more than once. In houses like these it often makes sense to paint the walls, ceiling and trim of a room together. We paint interior doors on both sides and the jamb.
1950s and 60s streets
Streets like Camden Drive and parts of Augusta Road have many older houses, some from the 1950s and 60s. Neighborhood names you will hear on this side include Piedmont Farms off Payne Drive, Valleybrook on Augusta Road and Pine Shadows. Houses from that era are often brick or frame ranches, and the paint jobs tend to be the trim, soffits, shutters and doors outside, and dated rooms and kitchens inside. Shutters are taken down, painted on both faces and rehung. For kitchens, see cabinet painting.
Newer houses and bigger lots
Out along roads like Garrison Road, many of the houses were built around the 2000s, often on bigger lots than in town. Newer houses are usually ready for their first full interior repaint, moving off builder colors and fixing the nail pops that show up as a house settles. If your newer house has vinyl siding, it can be painted in a vinyl-safe color. See vinyl siding.
Before the estimate
Bigger lots can mean longer hose runs and no spigot on one side of the house. If that is you, mention it on the estimate form or when you call. For what goes into a price, see how we price. From Piedmont we also work in Greenville, Mauldin and Simpsonville.