Five Colours Means Five Times the Cut Lines

Two things drive the cost, and neither is the paint itself. The first is masking and cutting time — every place one colour meets another has to be defined cleanly, and on ornate trim that usually means cutting the line freehand with a brush rather than relying on tape, because tape rarely sits flat against a turned profile or a raised panel.

The second is sequencing. A single-colour house can largely be sprayed in one pass. A four- or five-colour scheme has to be worked colour by colour, with drying time between each before the next can be cut against it, which stretches the calendar as much as the price. None of that means a multi-colour scheme is a bad idea — on the right period house it is usually the correct one — but pricing it like a stucco box with a different swatch is how an estimate ends up wrong.

If your property is inside the Smiley Park Historic District or otherwise carries a City historic designation, likely yes — Redlands reviews exterior colour changes on designated properties as part of protecting the character those districts were established to preserve. It is a City process rather than an HOA one, and it applies to designated properties rather than to the whole city.

The practical impact is timing rather than difficulty. We confirm whether your address carries a designation as part of preparing the estimate, and if it does, that review is built into the schedule before any paint is ordered — because paint mixed to a colour is not returnable, and starting before an approval is in hand is a risk with a real price attached. Most designated properties are approved without much friction when the palette is genuinely period-appropriate.

Historic paint research generally starts with the house itself. Victorian and Classical Revival exteriors typically used a body colour with a distinctly different trim colour and often a third accent on window sash or porch detail, favouring combinations with real contrast between the layers rather than close, similar tones. Craftsman houses lean toward a different, more muted logic, usually earth-toned bodies with a darker trim.

Where the house has physical evidence — old paint visible in a protected corner, under trim that has been replaced, or in a photograph — that is worth more than a general rule, and we will point it out if we see it during the walkthrough. Where there is no evidence, we work from what is generally documented for the house’s style and era, and we would rather show you two or three genuinely appropriate options than one guess presented as the answer.

Sometimes, and it depends on what evidence the house still has. A small scrape in an inconspicuous, weather-protected spot — under an eave, behind a downspout, inside a porch ceiling — can reveal earlier paint layers, and working back through those layers occasionally turns up something close to an original scheme, though later repaints and fading make an exact match uncommon.

Where no physical evidence survives, an exact original colour is essentially unrecoverable, and the honest path is a scheme documented as appropriate for the house’s style and era rather than a claimed restoration. We will tell you plainly which situation your house is in rather than presenting a guess with more confidence than it deserves. Either way, the result should look like it belongs on the house rather than a modern reinterpretation of an old idea.

There is no fixed number, but there is a point past which a scheme reads as busy rather than considered, and it is usually somewhere past five. A body, a trim, a sash colour and one accent — three or four total — covers the great majority of period Redlands houses well, with an additional colour typically reserved for something specific like porch columns or a front door.

What matters more than the count is contrast and placement: each colour should read clearly against its neighbours, and the boundaries should follow the architecture — a change in material or plane — rather than being placed arbitrarily. A five-colour scheme done with restraint looks intentional. A three-colour scheme done without attention to where the lines fall can look worse. The labour scales with the boundaries either way, so it is worth planning rather than adding colours mid-job.

Yes. CSLB #1105333 is a Class B General Building licence, which covers wood repair, fascia replacement and stucco patching in the same scope as the coating, with licensed specialty trades coordinated where a scope genuinely requires one.

On a period Redlands house this usually matters more than it would on newer construction — porch columns, window trim and built-up millwork have had a long time to fail at joints and end grain, and painting over failing wood is the fastest way to lose a beautiful cut line within a year or two. Being able to repair rather than only paint means the estimate reflects what the trim actually needs rather than what a fresh coat can temporarily hide. Free estimate, and financing if the repair scope is larger than expected.