Painting, drywall and remodeling in Pasadena
Plaster-savvy painting, drywall and remodeling for historic Pasadena homes.
What building in Pasadena actually involves
Pasadena has the best-preserved Craftsman housing stock in Southern California, and working on it properly requires knowing what is behind the wall. These homes have lath-and-plaster, not drywall. Plaster fails as spider cracks and as keys breaking loose from the lath behind, and it has to be re-keyed and repaired in plaster – patching it with joint compound produces a repair that pops back out within a year.
The same applies to woodwork. Original Craftsman trim, built-ins and box beams are the reason these homes are worth what they are, and stripping and refinishing them is very different work from painting a modern baseboard. We treat that trim as something to preserve, not something to cover.
Pasadena has multiple landmark districts and a design review process for exterior changes to designated properties. Interior work is generally unaffected, but we check the status of an address before quoting anything visible from the street.
Recent job here
Craftsman plaster repaired as plaster
Loose plaster keys re-anchored to the original lath, cracks bridged, walls skimmed, and the box beams stripped and refinished.
8 days – $8,200
All services
Everything we do in Pasadena
Eight services under one contract, so a job that touches three of them still runs on one schedule.
Interior Painting
Original Craftsman woodwork that has never been painted stays unpainted. Where trim was painted decades ago, those layers are treated as lead-containing and prepared lead-safe before any sanding.
from $3.25 / sq ft
Exterior Painting
Craftsman exteriors mean wood shingle and clapboard, exposed rafter tails and deep eaves. Prep is scraping, spot-priming bare wood and replacing split shingles, and in a landmark district we check before changing any material.
from $2.75 / sq ft
Drywall & Plastering
Most Pasadena wall work is lath and plaster: loose ceilings re-attached with plaster washers, cracks filled in plaster rather than joint compound, and a skim coat to match the original hand-trowelled surface.
from $275
Flat Roof Coating
Seamless elastomeric coatings that stop leaks at the seams, cut the heat coming through your ceiling, and add years to the roof you already have – for a fraction of a tear-off.
from $4.25 / sq ft
Bathroom Remodel
In a period house the bathroom can keep the look of its time – hex or subway tile, a pedestal basin – while everything behind the walls is replaced with modern waterproofing and plumbing.
from $15,000
Kitchen Remodel
Full kitchen remodels under one contract – demolition, plumbing, electrical, cabinetry, countertops, backsplash and appliances – with cabinets ordered before demo so the room is never sitting gutted.
from $32,000
Flooring
Older Pasadena houses often have oak or Douglas fir floors worth refinishing. Fir is softer and marks easily, so the sanding sequence and finish are chosen for fir rather than treating it like oak.
from $5.75 / sq ft
Fencing
New wood and vinyl fencing, repairs to leaning and rotted sections, and staining or painting that actually survives an LA summer.
from $45 / linear ft
Also working across the San Gabriel Valley
FAQ
Working with us in Pasadena
If yours is not here, call us. We would rather answer it before you book than after.
For changes to exterior materials and features, often yes: Pasadena generally requires a Certificate of Appropriateness for that kind of change on a designated property or in a landmark district. Interior work is generally not reviewed. We look up the status of the address before quoting and tell you which parts of the job would need review, so it goes into the schedule instead of stopping it.
Free estimate
Get a fixed price for your Pasadena project
Free walkthrough, written quote the same day in most cases, and no follow-up sales calls.
(213) 375-0868