Arana Residential & Commercial Painting

Arana was busy so couldn't start on the day I wanted and I had a date to complete by because we were going to put the house on the market no later than early November.  They did meticulous prep and at first my realtor thought they wouldn't complete in time for us to have our scheduled open house.  But they worked extra evenings to complete on time and they did a beautiful job.  The house looked elegant, which is the look we were going for and couldn't have achieved without their skillful attention to detail. They also gave me a complementary hour with a colorist to choose the perfect colors.  Arana is definitely a company that listens to customers and delivers results on time - a rare find in paint companies.

We asked Ernesto for a proposal for painting two bedrooms, a bathroom, hallway, living room and dining room. He gave us a detailed proposal to start with, and amended it when we expanded the scope of work to include prepping for oil-based paint on certain trim (this was above and beyond the prep work for latex-based paints he had included in his original proposal).
The two-man crew Ernesto assigned to the job showed up promptly every day, wrapped every single item of furniture in plastic wrap, moved it into the center of each room, and thoroughly scraped and sanded and prepared the walls and trim for painting. They did most of the work in the last half of December 2012; Ernesto returned in March 2013 to install the earthquake straps.
In addition to the prep work and painting, we asked Ernesto to fix a botched window frame repair done by an earlier exterior painter (see note at end of review). The window looks like new.
All of the work was done to a professional standard and looks perfect. There were a couple of minor scratches in the dining room hardware floor, but Ernesto polished those up to the point where you hardly notice them. In short, it was an excellent job all the way around, and we are delighted with the work, with the responsiveness of Ernesto and Catherine to our many questions, and the work ethic shown by the painting crew members.
With respect to the exterior painting mentioned above, Ernesto was one of the bidders on that job. We chose someone else, and wish we'd chosen Ernesto instead.
Excellent job.

The prep work and painting of our 1931 Redwood Heights, Oakland Spanish Revival turned out great.
From the estimates, through the prep work and painting, Arana went above and beyond to make sure we were happy with the colors and the details of our home. ARC doesn't treat their home as a fixed time fixed cost project. Ernesto and Catherine have both stopped by unsolicited to see how the house and paint are doing, maintaining their work while it's under warranty.
We're putting our house on the market, as part of the inspection process, the inspectors make small holes in the exterior stucco. ARC, on an evenings notice is going to help us patch and paint the holes. Amazing Full-Service!
Their services provide long-lasting, great value. I look forward to working with Arana again.

Prep work was very thorough and end result looks very good. They were very responsive throughout the process. It took a bit longer than expected to finish the job, but that seems to be pretty common. Painters were polite, careful with landscaping, and cleaned up well afterwards. I would recommend this company to others.

Great experience. Our (three-story) house was overdue for a paint job, with a number of areas where the bare wood was exposed. We also had lead paint issues, and a small child. The Arana Painting team prepared all the surfaces thoroughly and carefully, and the finish was really good. They were also responsive to small items (like paint on a door knob, etc) and fixed any issues we had. They used the proper techniques for lead abatement. There was very little mess at the end of each day. Very professional. Would recommend them to anyone.

Their work was fantastic from start to finish. When Ernesto came to give us the estimate he was on time and professional and polite and very personable. When the office manager called to schedule the appointment she was quick getting back to me, despite the fact that they were so busy. They had communicated clearly because Ernesto came prepared to discuss our job in detail when he arrived. They did a full exterior paint job on our home in San Francisco, complete with repairs, prep, 3 colors a large building and some difficult areas to get to. His crew showed up promptly every day, they were very meticulous about their work, they were always polite to us and to our neighbors, they cleaned up every day before leaving and they were very careful with our landscaping and outdoor furniture and things. The paint job looks fantastic, all our neighbors are jealous and in the spring I think our whole block will be done by Arana Painting. We couldn't recommend them more highly.

I am writing to provide a glowing recommendation of ARC painting, headed up by the husband and wife team of Ernesto Arana (the service end) and Catherine Baldi (the business end). We found them through the Berkeley Parents Network website and chose them because of their great reviews over there. We were not disappointed. What made their work stand out was the great attention to detail.They made our shabby house look new by stripping off nearly all of the old paint before priming and re-painting. Our neighbors were impressed by how thorough they were in their prep work, the key to a great finished service. They also were very careful and thorough on the paint work, so that people thought they had done 3 coats rather than 2. They always kept things very tidy and their staff were always pleasant and professional. There fee was very reasonable. I recommend them very highly.