House painters in Gurnee, IL

Gurnee is a 1990s town. Nearly four in ten homes went up in that one decade, and the median home dates to 1992. It is also a townhome town: almost four in ten homes are attached or in multi-unit buildings, so association color rules are part of a lot of exterior jobs here. Here is what each era needs.

The 1970s and 80s communities: Heather Ridge, Pembrook, Spinney Run, Westgate, Woodland Hills

Heather Ridge started going up in 1970 and Pembrook in 1974; Spinney Run, Westgate and Woodland Hills followed in the second half of the 1980s. Most homes in these communities are townhomes and condos under an association. Inside, owners are usually updating decades of finishes: dark trim to white, tired builder colors to one clean neutral. Outside, the association typically sets the palette and the timing, so we start from what your HOA allows.

Watch for: faded, chalky trim on the sunny side of a building and touch-ups that no longer match the original color.

The 1990s subdivisions: Providence Village, Stonebrook, Kingsport Woods, Timberwoods, Bittersweet Woods, Hunt Club Farms, Fields of Gurnee

This is the heart of Gurnee's housing, built by names like Westfield Homes, Cambridge Homes and Meister-Neiberg. Typical for the era: cedar or engineered-wood siding and trim outside, builder-grade paint inside, and now around thirty years of weather and family life. Outside, failure starts where water sits: the bottom siding courses, trim under the gutters, and the cut ends of engineered boards where the factory seal was never renewed.

Inside, the common asks on 1990s homes are stained oak trim and doors painted white, nail pops and drywall seams from settling fixed before the finish coat, and old wallpaper borders taken down. All of it is prep work, and prep decides how long the paint lasts.

Watch for: bottom-course rot, open butt joints on engineered siding, and paint rolled straight over unprimed patches.

The newest streets: Wentworth and Victorian Village

Victorian Village's townhomes went up between 1993 and 2006, and Wentworth's ranch homes between 2017 and 2021. Newer homes need the least repair, but they still need proper cleaning and the right primer for the material. "New enough to skip prep" is how the first repaint fails early.

About one Gurnee home in five was built before 1980, and much of the older housing is on the east side of the village. On anything built before 1978, assume lead-based paint under the newer coats. Old paint gets contained and cleaned up carefully, never dry-sanded into the yard, and it is worth asking any contractor how they handle it before work starts.

Siding, trim, fascia, doors, decks and fences, prepped for the freeze-thaw cycle that takes finishes apart here. On the 1990s cedar and engineered-wood homes the work is mostly prep: rot cut out and primed, joints sealed, chalk washed off before the first coat. In the townhome communities we work from the association's approved colors and schedule.