About Sprigtoys

We Read the Governing Documents Before We Open a Can

Sprigtoys paints shared buildings in Long Beach. Condominium complexes, townhome rows, bungalow court associations, small six unit buildings where the whole membership fits around one table. We work out of Cherry Ave in the 90813 ZIP and most of our jobs are within a few miles of it.

The reason we describe ourselves by the approvals rather than by the paint is that on an association the paint is the easy part. Anyone with a sprayer can put a color on a wall. The work that goes wrong is upstream of that: a color nobody formally adopted, a rail that turns out to be an owner’s responsibility after it has been painted at association expense, a phase two that does not match phase one because the tint batch changed, or a start date that ignored the fact that stucco in this city is wet until mid morning for half the year.

How a Job Actually Starts

Before we quote we ask for the CC&Rs, the current architectural guidelines and whatever color schedule is on record. Sometimes there is a proper document with product names and formulas. More often there is a folder with a chip stapled to a decade old invoice, and part of what we deliver is turning that into something usable.

Then we walk every elevation with the board or the manager. We photograph the failures, note where the chalking is worst, check the rail anchors for rust bleed, look at the parapet caps on the flat roof buildings, and mark on a plan which surfaces are common area and which are limited common elements assigned to a single unit. That map goes in the proposal, because the boundary question is the one that turns into an argument after the fact.

The Older Stock and the Newer Stock

A good share of our work is in the two and three story walk-ups around Alamitos Beach and Bluff Park, built in the 1920s and 1930s, stucco over wood frame with iron rail on the exterior walkways. Those buildings predate the 1978 lead rules, so we test before we disturb old layers and work wet with proper containment where the test comes back positive. Around Belmont Heights and Rose Park it is smaller duplex and bungalow court associations. East of Bixby Knolls the buildings are wider post-war stucco with alley-access garages, and there is a run of mid-century flat-roof units where the leak is almost always the parapet cap rather than anything we are being asked to paint.

Salt Air and Sun

Two things shorten a coating’s life here. Salt off the harbor and the breakwater attacks galvanized rail and iron gate work from the weld seams outward, which is why we take metal back to sound material and use a direct to metal coating rather than treating a handrail like a piece of trim. And afternoon sun on the south and west elevations breaks the binder down years before the shaded sides give up, which is why a complex often looks fine from the street and terrible from the alley.

What We Will Tell a Board Not to Spend On

Not every complex that asks for a quote needs one yet. If the chalking is light, the caulk joints are intact and the metal is clean, we will say the building has a couple of years left and suggest the money goes to the parapet or the irrigation instead. We would rather come back in two years to a job that is straightforward than take a repaint now and watch it fail early over a wall that is still wet.

Call (562) 527-4101.