Metro Detroit, MichiganHouse painters across Metro Detroit

Guiffre’s Painting Co. is a family-owned house painting company, and our work reaches well beyond the Pointes. 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, inside and out.

The region’s housing runs in recognizable layers: early-20th-century homes with plaster walls and original wood trim, then the post-war years of brick bungalows and ranches, many trimmed or sided in aluminum. Each layer has its own painting problems, and they look much the same from one community to the next.

What do Metro Detroit exteriors need?

Across the region, the weather tells the same story: cold winters, freeze–thaw cycles, humid summers and an exterior season that runs roughly from late spring to early fall. What differs is the house.

• Early-20th-century homes usually have wood siding, wood trim and wood windows under decades of paint. They need scraping, feathering, priming bare wood, reglazing failed window putty and caulking open joints.
• Post-war brick bungalows and ranches often pair unpainted brick with painted wood or aluminum trim, soffits and fascia. The brick sets the palette, and whether to paint it at all is a separate, lasting decision; see should you paint brick?
• Aluminum siding and trim turns chalky as its factory finish ages. It needs a thorough wash, primer on any bare metal and a quality exterior acrylic, and dents will still show.

Each is exterior painting that rewards patience in the prep and punishes shortcuts a winter or two later.

What do plaster interiors and older rooms need?

Plaster walls run through the region’s older homes, and post-war houses may have plaster, drywall or both. Three interior problems are common in houses of this age:

• Cracked and patched plaster. Old patches made with the wrong material shrink or show through paint. A proper repair uses compounds suited to plaster, then primer; our guide to painting plaster walls explains how.
• Stained ceilings. Water marks from an old leak bleed through ordinary paint. Once the leak is fixed and the plaster is dry and sound, a stain-blocking primer goes on before the ceiling paint.
• Steamy bathrooms. A peeling bathroom ceiling usually traces back to moisture. Ventilation matters as much as the paint, and walls there need a finish that can be wiped.

Homes built before 1978 may contain lead-based paint. The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule requires certified firms and lead-safe work practices for paid work that disturbs more than 6 square feet of painted surface per room inside, or more than 20 square feet outside.

Careful prep like this is what interior painting in an older house comes down to.

Which colors suit brick bungalows and post-war ranches?

On a brick house, the brick is the biggest color on the front, and it isn’t changing. Choose trim and accent colors that sit with it rather than fight it.

• Trim on red brick: Creamy SW 7012, a true cream with visible yellow warmth, looks softer against red brick than a bright white.
• Front door: Positive Red SW 6871, a bright, saturated red, gives a bungalow with tan brick or light siding a confident entry. On red brick, a true black like Tricorn Black SW 6258 usually sits better.
• Faded aluminum trim on a ranch: Gauntlet Gray SW 7019, a deep warm gray (charcoal-taupe), gives tired trim definition, with a soft white like Pure White SW 7005 for contrast.
• Inside an older home: Alabaster SW 7008, a warm, creamy off-white, is a gentle partner for original wood trim and plaster.

Screens and chips mislead, and brick shifts with the light. Test real samples against your own brick and walls, morning and afternoon, before you commit.

Live outside the Pointes? How do you get started?

Our home base is the five Grosse Pointes, but our work isn’t limited to them. If your house is elsewhere in Metro Detroit, the first step is simple: tell us where it is and what it needs.

• Where: your community, so we can tell you whether it fits our schedule.
• The house: roughly when it was built, its style (bungalow, ranch, older two-story) and its siding: wood, aluminum, brick or a mix.
• The scope: interior, exterior or both, which rooms or sides of the house, and any peeling, rot, water stains or cracks you’ve noticed.
• Timing: exterior work runs roughly late spring to early fall in Michigan; interiors suit any season.
• Photos, if you have them, of each side of the house and any problem spots.

You can send all of it through our estimate request.