Apartment & Unit Painting in Wollongong: Body Corporate Basics

Every year or two a strata manager or an owners’ committee calls us about painting a block of units in Wollongong, and the conversation always starts the same way: “We’ve never done this before, what do we need to know?” At Colourland Painting we’ve done enough of these jobs now — common hallways, stairwells, exterior render on three and four-storey blocks, and plenty of individual units for owners and landlords in between tenants — that we can walk people through it without the surprises. Here’s what body corporate and apartment painting in Wollongong actually involves, from our experience doing it.

Common property is a different job to a house

The biggest thing owners and even some committees don’t realise until they’re in it: painting common property isn’t the same job as painting a house, and it’s not priced or scheduled the same way either. A hallway, a stairwell or an external render wall belongs to everyone in the scheme, which means the works have to go through the owners corporation, usually via a quote to the strata manager and a resolution at a committee or general meeting before anyone picks up a brush. We’re used to working to that process — providing a proper written quote with a scope the committee can vote on, breaking out common property from any individual lot work, and giving a timeline the strata manager can put in a notice to residents.

Where it’s a single unit — an owner repainting before selling, or a landlord doing a full repaint between tenants — that part’s much closer to a normal residential job, just inside a shared building with its own access rules on top.

Access, notice and working around people who live there

This is the part that actually makes strata jobs harder than a standalone house, and it’s not the painting itself. A block of units means residents coming and going at all hours, cars in a shared driveway, and hallways and stairwells that can’t just be closed off for a week. We plan around it: staging the work section by section so there’s always a clear path in and out, doing anything noisy or fume-heavy at hours that suit the building rather than us, and giving the strata manager clear notice periods to pass on to owners and tenants so nobody’s surprised by drop sheets in the hallway on a Tuesday morning.

Balconies and individual entry doors need their own conversation too, because technically a lot of that is often the lot owner’s responsibility rather than common property, and getting that wrong is how disputes start. We’ll flag it in the quote rather than assume, because it’s cheaper to sort out on paper than argue about after the job’s done.

Matching what’s already there — and getting sign-off on it

A strata building usually has an established colour scheme, sometimes one that’s been in place for twenty years and sometimes one the committee’s genuinely tired of. Either way, colour on common property isn’t our call to make alone. We’ll bring colour options and, where the render or cladding allows it, a sample panel so the committee can sign off on something everyone’s happy with before we’re three storeys up with a full drum of paint mixed. Getting that approval locked in early is the single biggest thing that keeps a strata job on schedule — colour arguments mid-job are what blow out a timeline, not the painting.

Inside individual units it’s more straightforward — we work to what the owner wants — though we’ll still flag it if a colour choice is going to make the unit harder to sell or rent down the track, because from our experience a neutral, well-prepped interior moves faster than a bold one, even if the bold one looks great in photos.

What we actually use on a strata job

Render and masonry on multi-storey blocks cops more weather than a house wall does — more wind-driven rain, more UV on the upper floors, and on a lot of Illawarra buildings, a fair bit of salt air. We prep it properly: wash down, fix any hairline cracking or efflorescence before it goes near paint, then a proper masonry or render system rather than a straight exterior acrylic that won’t last on a taller building. Common hallways and stairwells get a hard-wearing, washable finish, because those surfaces take scuffs from furniture and trolleys that a bedroom wall never sees. We’ve used Dulux for the better part of thirty-five years for exactly this reason — it holds its colour and its finish on buildings that get more punishment than the average house.

Insurance and liability — ask before you hire

Any painter working on common property in a strata scheme should be able to show current public liability insurance, and a decent strata manager will ask for it before work starts. It’s not paperwork for the sake of it — there are more people moving through a shared building while work’s on than around a single house, and the owners corporation carries that risk if the contractor doesn’t. We carry full public liability cover and we’re happy to send it through to the strata manager or committee before we start, no different to how we’d answer if a homeowner asked the same question.

Getting it quoted properly

If you’re on a committee or managing a scheme and it’s time to get the block looking right again, the best first step is getting us out for a proper look — common property painting isn’t something we’ll quote sight unseen, because access, scaffolding or EWP needs, and the condition of the render all change the number. We cover strata and body corporate work across Wollongong and the Illawarra alongside our regular commercial painting jobs, and you can see more on how we approach strata and unit-block painting on our dedicated page. If it’s a single unit rather than the whole building, our residential painting page covers that side of it.

We’re second-generation painters based in Wollongong with over thirty-five years of combined experience, and we’ve worked with strata managers and owners corporations right across the Illawarra. If you’re on a committee weighing up a repaint, or you own a unit that needs attention before it goes on the market, get in touch and we’ll come and have a look. Call us on 0421 755 294.