Some buildings you paint for a client. This one we painted for the people who plow our street. The Northbrook Public Works garage is where the salt trucks, the sweepers and the crews that keep the village running start their day, and it sits a few minutes from the shop where Pete the Painter has been based since 1969. When it needed paint, there was never any question who would be bidding.
The Job
A large brick public works garage with Tudor-style half-timbered gables, three oversized overhead doors, a walk door and a band of cream stucco panels between the dark timbers. The timber trim, the stucco panels, the overhead doors and all the steel trim had faded and begun to peel. The village needed it repainted without taking the trucks out of service.
What Made It Different
- The doors are the building. Overhead doors this size are a sail in the wind and a magnet for truck bumps. They were washed, sanded, spot-primed and finished with a coating made for steel doors, panel by panel, with each door painted in the window between the morning roll-out and the afternoon return.
- Two colors, one clean line. Tudor trim lives or dies by the edge between the dark timbers and the light panels. Every joint was cut in by hand.
- Height over a working yard. The gable peaks are well above a ladder. The crew worked from a lift, in a yard full of moving trucks, with the lift positions planned each morning with the superintendent.
- The village was watching. This is a public building in Pete’s own village. Quality control was built in.
How It Ran
Trucks roll out early, so the crew started with the high trim and the stucco panels while the yard was empty, then moved to the doors once the vehicles were out. Each door was finished in a single shift so it could close that evening. The walk door and steel trim came last. The building was never out of service.
Municipal Buildings in Our Own Backyard
We have painted the Northbrook Village Hall, the Riverwoods Village Hall, park district shelters and school exteriors on the same terms: the building stays open, the schedule is written around the people who use it, and the finish is chosen for the next ten years, not the next inspection. For home work in the village, see the Northbrook painters page; for other public projects, read how we repainted Winnetka’s traffic signals and the Golf Metra station.
Talk to Pete About a Village or Commercial Building
Call (847) 564-4880 or request a site visit online. Pete walks every job himself and gives you a written scope, a firm quote, and a schedule that keeps the doors open.