Maple Grove's 1980s-2000s two-stories: hardboard and early LP
Most of Maple Grove went up in a twenty-year stretch, and the siding on those homes is the reason we are busy there. Hardboard lap siding from the 1980s and early 1990s, and the first generation of LP lap siding that followed it, both depend on a factory primer and a paint film to keep water out of the board. Once the paint chalks and the caulk splits, water gets into the bottom edge and the board swells, the paint lifts, and the swelling works up the wall. On a Maple Grove walkthrough we check every bottom course, the boards under windows, and the corners where the caulk has pulled away. Boards that are still hard get washed, sanded, primed on bare spots and painted. Boards that have gone soft get cut out and replaced with new material before paint. The trim on these homes is usually hardboard too, and the fascia behind a clogged gutter is where the rot starts.
Rice Lake, Fish Lake and Arbor Lakes
The homes around Rice Lake and Fish Lake are some of the older housing in Maple Grove, 1970s and 1980s houses with cedar and hardboard under mature trees, and the lake side of each house behaves the way lake walls do everywhere: dew and fog in the morning, mildew in the shade, soft sills and deck boards on the water side. We wash those walls with a mildewcide, give them an extra drying day, and treat stained cedar as a staining job rather than a painting job. Arbor Lakes is the other end of the city's timeline, 2000s homes and townhomes with LP SmartSide and fiber cement that are now reaching a first repaint: chalked finish on the sunny walls, split caulk, and a color that has faded from what the owner chose. That work is a wash, new caulk at every window and corner, primer on the worn spots and two coats. Townhome associations usually control the color, and we handle the sample and the approval with you.
How we work in Maple Grove
Maple Grove is about 25 minutes east of the shop: Hwy 55 through Greenfield and Corcoran, then the county roads north into the city, or I-94 from the Rogers side for the north end. It is a full-day drive for us, so we stack the walkthrough, the color samples and the second look to make each trip count, and we run Maple Grove jobs alongside work in Corcoran and Rogers. Lots here are closer together than the acreage cities we serve, so we mask the neighbor's side as carefully as our customer's and keep the sprayer to walls where overspray can be controlled. Every exterior gets a written estimate with repairs as separate lines, a wash, scraping and sanding where the surface needs it, repairs under our contractor license, caulk, primer and two finish coats sprayed and back-brushed on siding and brushed on trim, with daily cleanup and a final walkthrough. Exterior season runs roughly May to mid-October.
Exterior painting in Maple Grove
Maple Grove has more hardboard and early LP siding than anywhere else we work, and that makes exterior painting here a board-by-board trade: find the swollen ones, replace them, prime the rest, and put on a finish that keeps water out for another decade. Our exterior painting page covers the process and what sets the cost on a 1990s two-story. How an exterior repaint goes, and what moves the cost. Rotten trim and siding get replaced first by our own crew under our contractor license, see rot and trim repair.
Interior painting and cabinets in Maple Grove
Inside, Maple Grove's 1980s and 1990s homes are the classic winter job: oak trim and stair rails sprayed white, popcorn ceilings repaired and repainted, and the original oak kitchen sprayed with a waterborne enamel. We run interior and cabinet work from November through April, a floor at a time so the household can keep living in the house while we work. See interior painting and cabinet and trim enamel.
Where in Maple Grove we work
- Arbor Lakes
- Rice Lake
- Fish Lake area
Services in Maple Grove
Painting
- Exterior painting
- Interior painting
- Cabinet painting
- Staining and sealing
- Deck staining
- Commercial painting
Exteriors and build
Google reviewsWhat customers say
★★★★★Cedar Tone did an excellent job painting both our home’s interior and exterior. They went above and beyond by both repairing and staining the exterior siding. We’ve used them twice and would highly recommend them.
★★★★★I hired Cedar Tone to paint the outside of my home. They did a great job! The house looks just like I wanted it, they matched the existing paint color perfectly, cleaned up, and even rewashed my outside windows! I will be hiring them again!
Straight answersPainting questions from Maple Grove
The hardboard siding on our 1990s Maple Grove home is swelling at the bottom. Is it too late to paint?
Usually not. Hardboard fails from the bottom edge up, so the question is how many boards have gone soft. We check every bottom course and the boards under the windows on the walkthrough. Sound boards get washed, sanded, primed on bare spots and painted. Swollen boards get replaced with new material before paint, under our contractor license. A few bad boards is a repaint; a whole bad wall is a siding conversation, and we will tell you which one you have.
Do you paint townhomes in Arbor Lakes, and can you work with the association?
Yes to both. Arbor Lakes townhomes are mostly 2000s LP SmartSide and fiber cement reaching a first repaint, and the association usually controls the color and sometimes the schedule. We brush samples on the actual siding, match the approved color exactly, note it on the estimate, and coordinate access with the association. Attached units mean we mask and protect the neighbor's side as carefully as yours.
Our house is on Fish Lake and the lake side peels every few years. What would you do differently?
Treat the lake wall as its own job. It gets a mildewcide wash, an extra drying day before primer, a bonding primer on every bit of bare wood, and a finish chosen for wet-dry cycling, all scheduled for the driest days of the job. Peeling that comes back every few years is almost always paint over damp or unprimed wood. Soft sills and deck boards get replaced before paint, not painted over.