Stroke & Kote Quality Painting Company Profile

ooking for a painter can be confusing. Most of us focus on color choices and oil-based or water based paints. But what do painters focus on, and what makes them different from one another? What constitutes a good or a bad paint job?

Peter Inglis of Stroke & Kote Quality Painting in San Rafael CA has a definitive answer to this question, "It's the prep work. Of course, you also have to know how to apply paint and finishes, but if the painter hasn't prepped the surfaces properly, the job won't last. It may look nice when it's finished, but with a cheap, un-prepped job you'll begin to see bubbling, peeling and cracking. The problem is that you may not see it for 2 years, and then you'd have to pay to repaint all over again."

An Artisan Painter Educates His Clients—and Us

When Peter Inglis started painting as a Sonoma State college student in the 1970s, he was looking for a way to support himself as he attained his Bachelor's in Psychology. However, when he got a painting job for a heritage home—a beautiful, stately home in Sonoma, and he found his calling as an artisan painter. Peter gathered a crew together and founded Stroke & Kote Quality Painting in 1976 to focus on the many Victorian homes in Sonoma County. It was on these older wooden homes that he became a local expert in how to do the best preparation. These houses needed power washing, sanding, dusting, caulking with top quality materials, and often various forms of wood repair before the paint could be applied. Peter and his crew also created an innovative way to apply the first primer coat that acts as the foundation of the color coat that follows. Stroke & Kote tints the primer to match the color coat, which means that their double-coat painting jobs include a very high-quality primer as the first coat.

Artisan-level work like this is very easy to propose to owners of heritage or Victorian homes; they know that their older homes require the best possible care. It's how Peter Ingliss has thrived despite competition from less-careful painters who do shoddy prep, hire unknown day laborers (and don't provide Workers' Compensation), and who pawn off the cheapest materials on the homeowners. Stroke & Kote's foremen have been with Peter for a minimum of 8 years (one has been with him for 20 years), and there's not a lot of turnover, so it's clear that he treats his employees well.

Peter explains, " When customers question my price, which is certainly not the highest—maybe a 7 out of 10—I ask them to think about when they want to repaint again. Sometimes another company's paint job might look okay when it's just finished. But on then on that cheap job, you may have to touch up the peeling and cracked areas in as little as 2 years. Forget power washing that other painter's job—that paint is going to come off. And you might have to pay to paint the whole house again as soon as 5 years. That's not a savings at all! If customers still have questions, Peter sends them to see his work on the famous McNear Building in downtown Petaluma. Peter and his crew painted the McNear (and the interior of the Mystic Theater) in 1978, when the building was 90 years old—and that paint job is still in great shape 30 years later!

Melding Art, Science and Production
When airless paint sprayers became popular, the Peter and his crew wondered if it was possible to combine their artisan-level work with rapid application sprayers, and discovered the technique of using sprayers properly. Spayed paint doesn't always adhere to the surface well, so Peter developed his own back-brushing and back-rolling process that works the paint into the surface and so gives his customers the advantage of the speed of airless spraying while retaining quality. However, after more than 30 years as a painter, there are some things Peter Ingliss refuses to change: He always uses oil-based primers on bare wood, he always uses less toxic low-VOC paints for interiors, and he always uses the more expensive elastomeric caulks for prep work, because he knows (from long experience) that they'll last for decades.

So yes, there is a huge difference between a cheap paint job and a quality paint job that lasts. And it's a difference that makes Peter Inglis and the Stroke & Kote customers very happy, "After 32 years of working at this level, we know the right processes, the right tools, the right materials, and the right brands. We can deliver the best job, and we know it. What's fun is when we hear from customers who know it too. One of our customers just told us, ‘I'm really glad I went with you because now I understand why you weren't the cheapest bidder.'"

---Karla Rutherford
Staff Writer
The Prime Buyer's Report