Grosse Pointe Park, MichiganPainting Grosse Pointe Park homes, grand and close-set

Guiffre’s Painting Co. paints the interiors and exteriors of homes in Grosse Pointe Park, the southernmost of the five Pointes, bordering Detroit on the shore of Lake St. Clair. The Park mixes grand period-revival houses with older homes built close together, and those two kinds of house need very different plans.

Bob Guiffre has painted homes across Grosse Pointe and Metro Detroit for more than 37 years, more than 1,800 of them, and his son, Bobby, works beside him on every project. We paint with Sherwin-Williams.

A house near Windmill Pointe Drive takes more wind off the lake than one near the shops of Kercheval in the Park or Mack Avenue. But a close-set house anywhere in the Park has its own problem: side walls that rarely see the sun.

What does a Park exterior need, big house or small?

Every exterior here faces the same weather: wind and moisture off Lake St. Clair, humid summers, and freeze–thaw cycles that pry open any joint left unsealed. What changes from house to house is scale and access.

On a large home, the work is volume and height: long runs of trim, tall gables, dormers, and on some older houses a slate or tile roof that can crack underfoot, so upper trim has to be reached without walking on it. Scraping, feathering, priming bare wood and recaulking that much trim is where the hours go in any exterior painting job, and it’s where a rushed one shows first.

On a close-set house, the side walls are the hard part. A wall a few feet from the neighbor’s gets little sun, dries slowly after rain and is where mildew usually starts. It needs a thorough wash, a mildew treatment and enough dry days before paint goes on; our guide to mildew on siding explains why. A narrow side yard also means careful ladder footing.

What do the Park’s older interiors need?

If your house dates from the early 20th century, as so many in the Pointes do, expect plaster walls, original wood trim and, in larger homes, tall stair halls and formal rooms with layered moldings.

Plaster is durable, but it cracks as a house settles, usually above doors and windows and where walls meet ceilings. A lasting repair opens the crack, fills it with a setting-type compound (often reinforced with tape) and primes the patch so it doesn’t show through the finish. Caulk smeared over a plaster crack usually shows again.

Old trim has typically been painted many times, and the lower layers are often oil-based. Latex over glossy oil, without sanding and a bonding primer, can peel off in strips. To check, rub a hidden spot with rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball: if paint comes off on the cotton, it’s latex; if not, it’s likely oil.

Scale changes the interior painting plan. A two-story stair hall needs staging rather than a stepladder, and ceilings come first. In a smaller house, the limit is space to move furniture, so rooms are usually done one or two at a time.

Which colors suit Tudor Revival and English cottage homes?

Tudor Revival and English cottage styles are among the period revivals found across the Pointes, and both look right with earthy, restrained palettes. The brick usually stays as it is, so choose every paint color to sit comfortably beside it.

• Half-timbering and stucco: Urbane Bronze SW 7048, a warm bronze-brown dark neutral, on the timbers, with Greek Villa SW 7551, a warm, gently creamy white, on the stucco panels.
• Doors and window sash: Rookwood Dark Green SW 2816, a dark traditional green from Sherwin-Williams’ historic Rookwood colors, suits a heavy plank door or an arched entry.
• Inside a cottage-style house: Clary Sage SW 6178, a soft, muted sage green, in a study or breakfast room, against creamy trim.

On a close-set block, your house is also seen right next to the neighbor’s. You don’t need to match it, but a palette in the same family of warmth tends to look settled. Screens and paint chips mislead, so test real samples on your own walls, in sun and in shade. Our guide to Tudor house colors goes further.

How should you plan painting a house in the Park?

Michigan’s exterior season runs roughly from late spring to early fall, so outside work books up early, and the cold months suit interiors. Beyond that, plan for the kind of house you have.

For a large house, consider phasing. The most weathered sides, often those facing the lake or the afternoon sun, can be painted one season and the rest the next, using the same color formula and sheen. Interiors can be split by floor.

For a close-set house, talk to your neighbors before exterior work starts. A ladder may need to stand on their side of the line, or a drop cloth cover part of their walk, and nobody minds much when they know the dates. Our process page shows how a project runs from walkthrough to final check.