"It all came together brilliantly," Mr Crimp said.
"There were so many people excited to help -- most of them were from Carterton, but some came from Masterton and Greytown, just because they thought it was a wonderful Wairarapa community exercise.
"Everyone pulled together and got it done, made new connections, and had a lot of fun.
"I think I underestimated how keen people would be."
Mr Crimp said the CBDI had identified 27 Carterton buildings in need of "a bit of TLC", and chose five to kick off its transformation project: Cafe Mirabelle and Sew Carterton, Centreway Takeaways, Cafe Ole and the old RE/MAX and Waggs to Whiskers buildings.
Volunteers got to work early on a Saturday morning, scraping back the old paint -- revealing "some lovely old tiles" underneath on some buildings -- sanding the surfaces, and removing some of the old, redundant signage.
Work continued until 2pm on Sunday, when the final coats of paint were applied.
"There was a lot of elbow grease, but no-one seemed to mind," Mr Crimp said.
"The end result looked incredible -- really fresh, bright and eye-catching."
So much so that several enquiries had been made from businesses about the RE/MAX and Waggs to Whiskers sites, both of which had been vacant for some time.
"If a township looks fresh and enticing, people will want to come and base their businesses there."
Mr Crimp said the whole project was done on a budget of $5000, which included "heavily discounted" paint from Resene, scaffold hire, traffic management, inspection from WorkSafe, supervision from a builder and electrician, and catering from Carterton Rotary and cafes Ole and Mirabelle.
He said the CBDI planned to make over more buildings in early 2016, and also planned to work on the park spaces, create a sculpture garden, and continue work on the Carrington Park toilets.
"We want Carterton to be the type of place where people stop and look around -- not just put the boot down, and head straight on to State Highway 2."
More photos from the makeover weekend are on page 29.