OLD TOWN + HERITAGE PROPERTIES
Heritage paint colours for Lunenburg's Old Town.
The paint counter is inside the UNESCO Old Town. We match, tint, and stock what heritage exteriors need to hold up on the South Shore.
THE OLD TOWN
We work here every day.
Ironbound Paint Company sits at 161 Montague Street, inside Lunenburg’s Old Town — a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The streetscape is the reason the designation exists: the clapboard, the bay windows, the way the doors are set back from the sidewalk, the colours down the whole block. Our shop is one of those buildings; the fan deck we hand you belongs to the same street you’re painting on.
Owning or restoring a property in the Old Town isn’t like painting a new build. Substrates behave differently — some of that clapboard is over 200 years old and moves with the weather. Colour choices sit inside a streetscape, not on their own. And a full exterior repaint isn’t cheap, so the paint you choose needs to hold up for a decade of salt air and freeze-thaw before you touch it again.
HOW WE HELP
Three things heritage owners come in for.
Matching originals.
Strip a shingle, pop off a piece of trim, chip a hidden corner — bring the sample in and we’ll match it to a Dulux formula you can reorder for touch-ups years down the road. Custom colours are stored the same way factory colours are.
Working with a palette.
Traditional Old Town colours run to deep reds, creamy yellows, muted greens and blues, dark greys, and off-whites for trim. We keep the full Dulux fan decks at the counter — including the historical and heritage-oriented palettes — and can walk you through what fits your building and the block around it.
Picking a paint that lasts.
Old wood needs a paint that flexes, breathes, and takes salt air without chalking or cracking. For most heritage exteriors on the South Shore that means Dulux Weathershield, with a compatible primer. We’ll spec the whole system so nothing peels on you.
BEYOND THE OLD TOWN
Mahone Bay and the wider South Shore.
Mahone Bay’s waterfront is the other South Shore streetscape everyone knows — the three churches, the storefronts along Main Street, the coloured trim on generations of clapboard houses. It’s a 15-minute drive to our counter, and Mahone Bay customers make the trip regularly for the same reasons our Lunenburg neighbours do: heritage-appropriate colour, proper matching, paint that survives the weather.
Chester, Blockhouse, Bridgewater, Liverpool — the same principles apply anywhere on the South Shore. Salt air and coastal weather don’t stop at town lines. If your project is worth painting once, it’s worth painting with the right system.
A NOTE
We’re not a heritage consultancy.
We help with colour and paint — matching, choosing, and specifying products that suit heritage substrates and the South Shore climate. For anything that touches heritage approvals, permits, or property-specific restrictions on your building, work with your municipality and the appropriate heritage advisory body before ordering paint.
When you’re ready, come by with your sample or your palette questions. We’re open Mon–Sat, 8 to 4, and the whole fan deck is at the counter.