Since 2008
The name is the standard.
Prime & Proper started with Marek, a borrowed van, and a single rule picked up restoring Victorians in Oak Park: the prep is the paint job. Eighteen years later the rule hasn't bent — it just has more people enforcing it.
We only paint older homes and the people who love them. That means lead-safe certification instead of shortcuts, plaster repair instead of thick coats, and a color consultation before the first gallon is mixed — because the most expensive paint is the wrong color applied perfectly.
The name is a pun, but it's also the promise. Primed properly. Painted properly. Properly proper, some clients say, and they're right.
The crew of five
Small on purpose. The person who quotes your job is on your job.
Marek Nowak
Eighteen years on a brush, the last nine running crews that treat a 1920s bungalow like a landmark. Still cuts the tricky ceiling lines personally.
Tomasz Wójcik
Keeps three jobs a week on schedule and keeps the punch list shorter than the coffee order. If your walk-through goes suspiciously smoothly, thank Tomasz.
Zofia Kamińska
Reads north light like a forecast. Has talked exactly 212 households out of the gray they arrived with and into the gray they actually wanted.
Piotr Lewandowski
Runs the booth. His satin lacquer has no brush marks because it has never met a brush — and his door-rehang tolerance is measured in sixteenths.
Łukasz Zieliński
Runs the part of the job nobody photographs — scraping, skimming, and dust control — which is why the part everybody photographs looks the way it does.
Standards we'll show you
Two coats, always
It's in the contract, not the marketing. Coverage is a spec, and the spec is two.
Lead-safe, certified
RRP-certified crews and EPA protocol on every pre-1978 home. Your soil stays clean.
Warranty in writing
Three years interior, five exterior, ten on sprayed cabinetry. Ask to see the page.