We fix the wall before we paint the wall.
Cracked stucco, soft fascia and failed caulk are why a paint job ages badly. All of it is handled in house.
In house, and why that changes the job
Sunrise is listed as a painter, a carpenter, a drywall contractor and a stucco contractor, and that is not a list of ambitions. It is what the crews actually do. The people who patch your wall are the people who paint it the following morning.
Most painting companies sub this work out or paint straight over it. Subbing it out means two schedules, two companies and a gap where each one says the delay belongs to the other. Painting over it means the wall looks finished for a season and then tells the truth.
One customer described us as a quality oriented contractor whose work has been top notch in the details for repairing and matching the original appearance, and said the price was not the cheapest but was reasonable for work that needed no corrections afterwards. Repair is where that shows up, because a bad patch is visible forever and a good one disappears.
- Cracks opened so the filler has something to key into
- Texture matched to the wall around the repair
- Soft fascia, soffit and trim replaced rather than filled
- Window and door perimeters recaulked, not painted over
- Every repair primed before any finish coat
Why Pinellas stucco cracks
Almost every house here is block with stucco over it, or frame with stucco on lath on the second story. Both move. The ground is sand, the sun heats one wall past a hundred degrees while the shaded wall stays cool, and the block and the stucco expand at slightly different rates. Something gives, and what gives is the finish.
The usual places are the corners of windows and doors, where the opening concentrates the stress, and along the control joints the builder cut in for exactly this reason. Hairline cracking at those spots is a maintenance item on a Florida house rather than an emergency.
What turns it into a real problem is water. A crack is an opening and wind driven rain gets pushed straight into it. Once water is behind the stucco it goes to work on whatever it finds, and the first thing you usually see is paint blistering outside or a stain that keeps coming back on the inside wall.
How a crack actually gets fixed
The crack gets opened up first. Running filler over a tight hairline leaves a thin skin of material with nothing to grip and it splits again along the same line in the first hot week. Opening it out gives the patching material a shape to hold onto, and that is the difference between a repair and a smear.
Then it gets filled with the right material for that wall, pressed properly into the opening rather than floated across it, and cut back level. After that the patch gets textured. Walls around here carry knockdown, sand finish, dash and everything in between, and a smooth patch on a textured wall is visible from the street even after it has been painted, especially in morning light.
Last comes sealing and priming, so the finish lands on one consistent surface. A patch that never got primed drinks paint at a different rate to the wall beside it and shows up as a dull shape through the color however many coats go over it.
Wood, and the places Florida finds it
Fascia, soffit, garage door jambs, window trim and the bottom of exterior door casings are where wood goes soft on a house in this climate. Rain, humidity and a sprinkler head pointed the wrong way will do it, and a gutter that has been overflowing for two seasons will do it faster.
Anything soft gets replaced rather than filled. Filler in rotten wood fails again and takes the new paint with it, which is the most expensive way to hide a problem for a single season. Inside, the same rule applies to baseboard behind a toilet and casing beside a shower door.
The company is listed as a carpenter and a woodworker as well as a painter, so baseboard, crown and trim work are normal jobs rather than favors. That also means a repair found halfway through a paint job does not stop the paint job.
What is not a painting problem at all
Some cracks are structural and no coating fixes those. A stair step crack following the mortar joints through block, a crack that is wider at one end than the other, a horizontal crack running along a wall, or one where the two sides no longer line up. Those are movement in the house rather than movement in the finish.
If we find one we will show you a photo and say plainly that somebody qualified should look at the structure before anybody paints anything. Filling it and coating it makes it invisible for a season and hides something that is still happening behind the paint.
The same goes for a wall that is wet. If water is arriving from a gutter, a failed window seal or dirt graded too high against the slab, that gets dealt with first. Painting a wet wall is money spent on a coating that will blister off it.
Got a crack you have been watching get longer?
Send us a photo and we will tell you what it is.
What 404 homeowners said
Every quote below is a real review, word for word, from our Google profile.
We recently hired Sunrise Quality Painting, Inc. to repair and paint our ceilings a flat white as you could see blemishes and the seams from when we first removed the popcorn ceiling before we moved in, plus we’d moved some fixtures in the ceiling that needed patched. We also asked to add the repainting of our kitchen after doing a whole remodel last year. We couldn’t be happier with the results!
I had a great experience with Nick and Sunrise Quality Painting! They painted my condo bathroom, and I was super happy with how it turned out. What stood out the most was the attention to detail. Nick took his time to make sure everything looked great, and the finished result turned out awesome.
Several years ago I had Nick remove wallpaper from my main living quarters he then spackled and painted to perfection. I just had him back again this week with his crew to paint the exterior of my home. He's scraped plastered sanded and painted again to perfection. He also did my driveway. Nick is kind honest and perfectionist I highly recommend him
Nick was referred to me by one of my neighbors, and I’m really glad that I contacted him and hired him! Nick and his crew were professional, neat and courteous. Their cleanup was immaculate and they took all of their brushes rollers, etc. home with them to clean so there was no mess at my house!
Nick and his crew were very professional. I had them change a color for me on my shutters because I didn’t like it after they were painted. Nick told me no problem and changed it. They did a fantastic job pressure washing, caulking and sealing before they painted. The job was completed in 4 1/2 days even with the color change.
From Nick, the owner, to his crew, they have been a professional and helpful group of quality-oriented contractor in the Tampa Bay area. Their work has been top-notch in the details for repairing and matching the original appearance and the quality level. Their price certainly was not the cheapest, but it was reasonable, especially for the quality of work performed without having the need for corrections.
Free look at every crack and every soft board on the house.
No. Stucco, carpentry and drywall are done in house by the same crew that paints. That is the whole reason a repair found halfway through a job does not turn into a second company and a second visit.
A crack that was opened, filled, textured and sealed holds far longer than one that was coated over, and on a wall with a lot of fine cracking an elastomeric coating bridges the movement as well. Houses keep moving, so nobody can promise you never see another one.
Usually very close. Knockdown, sand and dash are all matchable by hand. The hardest one to hide is a repair in the middle of a big flat wall in full sun, and we will tell you up front how close we expect to get.
Yes. Soft wood gets replaced before it is coated. Filler in rotten wood fails again and takes the fresh paint with it, which is the most expensive way to hide a problem for one season.
Yes. Holes, popped nails, seam cracks, water damaged board and bad texture from a previous contractor are all normal work, and every patch gets primed rather than painted straight over.
At least out to the nearest break. A patch painted as a spot leaves a different sheen and a slightly different color, so we take the coating to a corner or a control joint where your eye already expects a line.
Width, direction and offset. A hairline at a window corner is normal. A stair step crack through the block, a crack wider at one end, or two sides that no longer line up is different. Send a photo with a pen next to it for scale and we will tell you what we think.
Yes, though we will prime the repairs so they are not left open to the weather. Some people want the wall sealed now and the painting done later, and that is a sensible way to split it.
Get a free estimate.
Tell us what needs painting. We will come and look at it and put a real number on it.