Strata & Multi-Family Painting

Strata painting in Burnaby and Metro Vancouver is one of the most logistically complex types of commercial painting. You're coordinating with a strata council, a property management company, and individual unit owners simultaneously — all of whom have opinions, schedules, and concerns about disruption, odour, and access. Burnaby Commercial Painting Co has developed a specific workflow for strata projects that takes the coordination burden off the property manager and gets the work done without turning the building into a construction zone for months.

The Strata Approval Process

In BC, significant common-area maintenance expenditures are typically subject to strata council approval and, for larger amounts, a special resolution or general meeting vote. We're familiar with this process and can support it: we provide formal written quotes with full scope breakdowns, painted colour samples for council review, product data sheets and specification documents, and phased schedule proposals that show council members exactly when their floor or building section is being worked on. If your strata council needs two or three competing quotes, we'll provide our scope transparently so you can make an apples-to-apples comparison.

Common Areas We Paint in Strata Buildings

Strata common area painting typically covers: main lobby and entry areas, elevator lobbies on each floor, corridor walls and ceilings, stairwells, parkade stair towers, amenity rooms (gym, party room, lounge), parking garage walls and structural elements, mechanical room corridors, and building exteriors. Each space has different requirements: lobbies often have feature wall treatments or decorative finishes; corridors need highly washable coatings; parkades need moisture-resistant masonry coatings rated for vehicle exhaust exposure; amenity rooms may need a design-forward approach with the strata's selected colour palette.

Scheduling in Occupied Buildings

Strata buildings don't stop. Residents need to get to their cars, to their suites, and to amenities regardless of what's being painted. We phase corridor work floor by floor, always keeping at least one exit route open and never blocking suite doors. In elevator lobbies, we work one side at a time and use drop cloths that double as floor protection so residents can still pass through. We notify residents 48 hours before work in their section starts, we use zero-VOC or ultra-low-VOC formulations in all occupied corridor and lobby areas, and we clean up completely at the end of each shift. The goal is to look like we were barely there.

Exterior Strata Programs

Exterior strata painting programs are often multi-phase, multi-year projects due to budget constraints. We work with property managers to develop phased programs — perhaps painting two elevations this fiscal year and the remaining two next year — with consistent colour and product specs so the building looks cohesive as sections are completed. We document the product and colour spec for each phase so there's no guesswork when Phase 2 is authorized. For wood-frame strata buildings common in Burnaby, we address rot, damaged siding, and failed caulk as part of the scope rather than painting over problems. We can coordinate with carpenters and caulking subcontractors as a single-point project manager.