Exterior Painting in Huntley, IL & the Northwest Suburbs

How the job goes, step by step

1. 1

   Walk and quote — Tim walks the whole house with you, points out what's failing and why, and you get an itemized written estimate: prep by elevation, coats, paint by brand and line, schedule.

2. 2

   Wash — low-pressure wash with a cleaner and mildew treatment; chalk, dirt and mildew come off, then the house dries before anything else happens.

3. 3

   Scrape, sand and prime — failing paint back to a sound edge, edges feathered, bare and weathered wood spot-primed.

4. 4

   Caulk and patch — every joint, seam and trim gap winter opened gets cut out and re-caulked; nail pops set and filled.

5. 5

   Paint — two coats of 100% acrylic, brushed and rolled where it matters, sprayed and back-rolled where that gives the better film — only when temperature, dew point and overnight lows are right.

6. 6

   Clean up and walk through — masking off, site cleaned, and a lap around the house with you before we call it done.

Prep built for freeze/thaw country

Chicagoland's freeze/thaw cycle is the quiet killer of exterior paint. Moisture gets into a hairline crack, freezes, expands, and turns a hairline into a peel — dozens of times each winter. So our prep is aimed straight at it: we wash off the chalk, dirt, and mildew that keep new paint from bonding; scrape and sand every failing area back to a sound edge; spot-prime bare and weathered wood; and re-caulk the joints, seams, and trim gaps where water gets in. We don't paint over last winter's damage. We fix it, then paint — that's the difference between a finish that lasts a couple of seasons and one that lasts a decade. If a bid is a lot cheaper than ours, ask which of those steps it skipped.

How freeze/thaw cycles destroy exterior paint in Illinois →

The Midwest painting window — and why you book in February

Exterior paint needs surfaces above roughly 50 degrees, nights that don't crash toward freezing, and humidity low enough for the coating to cure. We paint when surface temps sit between about 50°F and 85°F, overnight lows stay above 35°F for the coatings we use, and humidity is under 70% — in northern Illinois that means a real season, May through early October, with June to September the most dependable stretch and September the most reliable month. Every good crew in Chicagoland is working that same window, which is why the summer calendar fills by early spring. Our advice, the same we'd give a friend: get your estimate in late winter, lock a slot by March, and let us watch the dew points and forecast so your job goes on in the right conditions.

The best time to paint a house exterior in the Chicago suburbs, month by month →

Brick, vinyl, cedar, aluminum, fiber cement — we paint what the suburbs are built of

Northwest-suburban housing is a mix: brick colonials with painted trim, vinyl-sided two-stories where the trim, doors, shutters, and garage doors carry the color, cedar-sided homes in Barrington and along the Fox River, post-war aluminum ranches, and newer fiber-cement builds. Each surface preps and coats differently — aluminum needs its oxidation washed off and a bonding primer, cedar needs mildew treatment and the right stain or paint, fiber cement wants quality acrylic on clean caulk lines. We match the product to the surface instead of spraying one answer at everything.

Protecting your home while we work

A good exterior job shouldn't leave any evidence except the color. We mask windows, fixtures, and hardware; cover walkways, decks, and roofing at the drip lines; and protect your plants and landscaping from overspray. The site gets tidied every day and fully cleaned at the end, and we do a final walkthrough with you around the whole house. Tim has paid for enough sloppy jobsites on his own projects to have zero tolerance for them on yours.

What exterior painting costs here — and why prep is most of it

Exterior price is mostly labor, and labor is mostly prep: a home with sound paint and tight caulk costs meaningfully less than the same house with two peeling elevations. Published Chicago-area aggregates run about $1.50–$4 per square foot of siding (HomeAdvisor-style ranges). What moves it: stories and roof access, siding material (cedar and heavy scraping cost more than sound vinyl trim), how much bare wood needs primer, the number of colors, and whether shutters, doors and garage doors are in scope. You'll see each of those as its own line on the estimate.

2-year workmanship warranty, in writing

If paint we applied peels, blisters or flakes because of how we prepped or applied it, we come back and fix it at no cost — for 2 years, on every job. It's printed on your estimate and your contract, not buried in a PDF. Normal wear, damage, and substrate failures — rotted wood, a roof leak, moisture from an ice dam — aren't workmanship; if we see one at the walkthrough we'll tell you before we quote, not after.