Careful Painting completed exterior preparation, stain and paint restoration of this Sewell Mathre designed home in June of 2022. This home on Cherry Park was built as the parsonage for St. John’s Luthern church, who later sold it to the architect. The current owner purchased it from Mathre.

First the house was gently rinsed with a pressure-washer and minor mildew was cleaned off of the soffits with a bleach solution. The masonite panels under the windows were peeling, so I sanded them, primed the bare areas, and smoothed out the surface using 3M exterior spackle. The spackle was the  primed with Benjamin  Moore Sure Seal multi-purpose primer. The trellis was peeling badly likely from repeated hail damage. The loose paint was removed and the trouble areas were primed with Peel-Bond. Tim Peterson replaced bad boards on the trellis and sealed holes in the soffit. 

We mixed the original stain color–“New Stone” in Arborcoat 610 Ultra Flat Waterborne Solid Stain. As the windows had recently been replaced by Renewal By Anderson we were able to match the trim to the Anderson color “Coca Bean” in Aura premium exterior satin finish acrylic paint. I put matte finish Aura exterior paint–“Swiss Coffee” on the soffits–a slightly creamy off-white to complement the brown trim and grayish taupe siding color.

 I found that the house had generally been protected by the wide soffits over the years, and was really pleased with the condition of the finishes that Careful Painting  originally applied in 1998!

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Recently finished an extensive plaster repair and repaint job on      Central Park. Large areas were replaced by my friends at Gramse Plaster and stucco. I completed minor crack repairs using fiberglass mesh tape and joint compound. Wet-sanding smoothed the surface without creating clouds of dust. I also used USG Dust Control Joint Compound. Then the smooth areas needed to be textured to blend in with the 100 year old sand finish plaster. Priming and painting with Aura matte finish put the icing on the cake!

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Working with silver pigment weathering stain and silver semi-solid stain, MARK LANGE of Careful Painting puts the final touches on an all cedar house in the WENDWOOD subdivision of Northfield…The area was hit hard by the tornado of September, 2018 causing this property to be void of all the shade trees near the house…The owners elected to design and build a 6’x18’ pergola in 2019 with canopies and blinds on their 12’x21’ deck for shade…Next, the owners called for Mark in the spring of 2019 to give them a proposal for refurbishing the entire house…He explained that it would either be late fall or early spring of 2020…They patiently waited for his workmanship as they had heard very positive vibes about Mark…Work was completed on June 1, 2020…Their comments in the end…”Everything about the entire project was as expected”!!!…

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I recently applied this calming and simply elegant gray throughout a recently purchased 1920’s craftsman style home on Decker Ave west of Northfield. The new owners and I were very happy about how the original pine trim showed up against the Metropolitan in Aura eggshell finish! We also used Cloud White OC-130 in the stairwells and upstairs, and Soft Fern 2144-40 in the study.

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After having some of the cedar siding replaced, the owner of this passive solar masterpiece on Peterson Drive in Northfield hired Careful Painting to stain the siding. The new cedar was primed with oil primer last fall; This spring I washed the house, and removed some mildew. Old caulk was removed and loose stain on the top edge of the diagonal siding was scraped off and the bare wood primed. I caulked wherever water could enter, and used two part epoxy wood filler to fill a few holes. Finally a fresh coat of Benjamin Moore Arborcoat solid acrylic stain “Stonehedge” was applied.

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After some back and forth over color Careful Painting recently repainted this living area on 13th Street NW in Faribault. The grays selected looked good upstairs but washed out on the main floor. The many large windows in the living spaces required that our client find  a deeper gray to get the look she desired. We looked at the Affinity palette but finally settled on the warmer, “organic” Eagle Rock, Benjamin Moore 1469,  in the Aura matte finish. The Eagle has landed!

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Bill Bremer and Dan Boykin called me to touch-up some water stains on the ceiling of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Cannon Falls last week. The church was built in 1866.

There is a rope hanging from the ceiling that they still use to ring the bell. Interestingly, the rope came out of a metal tube in the ceiling. I suppose the tube is there so that the rope doesn’t catch on anything.Well, when the wind blows from the right direction, water will travel down the rope and stain the ceiling and walls.

After protecting the carpet and adjacent walls, I scaled a 20 ft ladder and sealed the damage with fast drying oil primer. After allowing the primer to dry I was able to touch-up using some of the original paint from the last time the church was painted.  Hopefully the wind won’t blow that way again for a long while!

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Our client wanted to update his country home after his recent marriage.  The house had been painted gray with charcoal trim.

Our client’s new wife is from the East Coast, and wanted a more contemporary look.  Plus, the house needed staining, and the old alkyd stain supported quite a bit of mildew growth.

She selected a couple of greens for the siding with a white accent on the trim. We put some samples on the house, and after a while she chose Benjamin Moore “Salamander 2050-10” for the bulk of the siding, with the upper sections and bays going “Kennebunkport Green HC-123.”

Careful Painting elected to use the new Benjamin Moore Arborcoat to convey sharper colors and also to eliminate the mildew problem.  Arborcoat is an environmentally friendly  waterborne stain which outperforms other acrylic and alkyd (oil) stains.

The white accent really helps the greens to pop!

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Careful Painting just finished a complete redecorating job in Burnsville at the Eric and Pam Dahlager household. A friend who works with Eric at Waste Management recommended us to the Dahlagers, and we painted the entire main floor for them, in addition to staining a new patio door to match the existing cabinetry in the kitchen.

Pam and Eric have a fairly simple lifestyle, but the decor was dated, and as Pam said, it was time for an update. Motivated by a recent trip to Italy, the Dahlagers called in the Design Doctors to help redecorate six rooms and the hallway of their 30 year old suburban home.

The Italian scheme is warm and inviting. Design Doctor Victoria selected colors from the Devine paint line to complement the existing walnut-stained woodwork. She also helped Pam select everything from flooring to furniture. Pam raves about the ease of working with Victoria and about the Design Doctors’ service – Victoria even checked Pam’s online selections to make sure they would harmonize with the overall design scheme and provided her expertise on a shopping trip to HOM Furntiure.

The Dahlagers sold their old furniture to a young neighbor who was getting married, and the entirely new furnishings do make a dramatic difference in the look of their home. More importantly, they are comfortable, functional, and fit into the Dahlagers busy lifestyle. We love the flooring and carpeting Victoria and Pam picked together, and so do the Dahlagers. Pam is an independent consultant for PartyLite candles, and her own products are the icing on the new design – the warm glow and scent of the candles coming from attractive sconces and candle holders multiplies the warm, cozy effect of this design scheme.

This was our first experience working with Devine paint, and we were interested to see if this line held up to its reputation of being a high-quality product. We were very pleased by the results. Devine says that its product goes on like yogurt and looks like chiffon. Those aren’t necessarily the words I would have picked to describe the paint, but there’s no doubt that it is creamy, easy to work with, and dries to a great velvety finish. Victoria chose the colors Filbert for the living room, Muslin for the hallway and guest bedrooms, Reef for the master bedroom and bathroom, and Cafe for the kitchen, with an accent of Cabernet on the soffit above the kitchen counter. The colors harmonized well and drew the eye from room to room. As much as we like Devine paint, we did use our favorite paint, Benjamin Moore Aura, for the Cabernet red accent above the kitchen counter. We’ve found that for dark colors like Cabernet, Aura is unmatchable in its ability to cover, ease of touchup, and effortless scrubability. In fact, both Devine and Aura provide easy cleanup, which may be important in the near future as Eric and Pam are contemplating adopting a golden retriever puppy after the unexpected death of one of their hunting dogs over Christmas.

There are a few details left to address (Pam is not quite done installing the sconces that will show off both her entryway and her PartyLite candles) but the overall design is done, and was complete ahead of schedule, which allowed the Dahlagers to do some entertaining in their new home over the holidays. The warm colors are incredibly effective; they work together to create an Italian-inspired refuge from Minnesota winters and compliment the dark woodwork perfectly. The Careful Painting crew enjoyed this work, and we’re glad to have had a part in such a great re-decorating project.

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Earlier in August we stained and painted the Ross and Jan Shoger residence overlooking the Carleton Arboretum at 201 Oak Street. It was designed by Bob Warren and Sewall Mathre of SMSQ Architects. Bob Warren Studied at Taliesin. Note the cantalivered deck. There are quite a few Frank Lloyd Wright elements, such as the “hidden” front door. It is worth a walk to see the house.

Before painting we washed the house with a special non-toxic formula to remove some mildew. We also scraped off loose paint at the windows and removed loose window putty. Two different primers were used according to the condition of the substrate.

Jan, Ross, and I met several times to discuss color.

As an artist Jan is very particular about color. She wanted to warm up the feel of the rough vertical Cedar, which had always been a charcoal color. I was concerned about being able to cover the charcoal without applying a heavy film: It was important to me to use a penetrating oil stain rather than going to the easier, popular solid color latex stains. Jan and Ross were also open to the possibility that some of the old color might still peek through the new stain. We settled on Cabot Semi-Solid Stain in “Oak Brown.”

The new brown is nicely accented by the warm red and gold panels on the walk-out side facing the Arboretum. The light blue trim gives the home a friendly Northfield/Scandinavian feel.

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