About Grandprojects2021

A Painting Crew That Works on Old Stucco

Grandprojects2021 is an exterior painting outfit in Pasadena, and almost everything we touch is stucco on a house older than we are. Spanish Revival, Mediterranean Revival, the occasional Craftsman with a stucco skirt and shingle above. Those houses are the reason we narrowed down to this work instead of taking everything that came through the door.

The narrowing happened for a practical reason. A pre-war stucco wall behaves nothing like the wall on a house built in the last thirty years, and the coating that is right on one is often the exact thing that ruins the other. Lime rich plaster over lath passes water vapor, and it has to, because the moisture that gets behind it leaves by drying out through the face. Seal that wall in a heavy waterproof film and you have built a trap. We got tired of being the second crew on the job, the one that scrapes off what the first crew sprayed on, so now we start with the wall instead of the paint.

How We Quote

We walk the house. All four elevations, separately, because in this climate they do not age at the same rate. The south and west walls take hard UV and dry Santa Ana wind and they chalk and fade first. The north side under a deep overhang can still be sound. Along the way we pull a strip of tape on any failing area, rub a damp cloth over the surface to see how much chalk comes off, and take a moisture reading if a wall is peeling. Those three checks decide the whole specification, and none of them can be done from the street or from a photograph.

Then we tell you what we found, including the parts that are not in our interest. Sometimes the answer is a full repaint. Sometimes it is that a downspout is dumping at the base of the wall and the paint is fine, and you should fix the downspout and call us in three years. We would rather give that answer and be remembered for it.

The Work Itself

Cracks get routed out and packed, not smeared with caulk. Patches get floated to match the existing texture, with a sample on a hidden wall for you to approve first. Pre-1978 housing gets lead safe prep as a matter of course, which here means nearly every house. And the coating is chosen for what the wall needs to do, not for what has the biggest number on the label.

Call (626) 806-0562 or find us at 7370 Lake Ave, Pasadena, CA 91104.