Orono's housing: lake homes, acreage and teardowns
Orono was incorporated in 1955 out of what was left of the township after Long Lake and the other lake villages broke off, and the old settlements (Navarre, Crystal Bay, Orono and Bederwood on Stubbs Bay) are still the names people use. The housing reflects a century of lake living. Along the bays there are many cottages that grew into year-round homes between the 1920s and 1960s, often stucco or cedar, next to 1970s and 1980s lake houses with cedar siding and big decks, next to brand-new custom builds on lots where the old cottage came down. Off the water, the west side of Orono toward Independence is acreage: hobby farms and 1980s and 1990s two-stories on wooded lots. Almost all of the shoreline is residential, and much of it gets repainted on a schedule.
Lake exposure on the north shore
Lake Minnetonka makes its own weather at the house. The water side of a home on Maxwell Bay, Stubbs Bay, Browns Bay or the North Arm takes reflected sun, wind and spray, so dark trim and stained wood on that side fade and dry out faster. The road side of the same house is often under mature oaks and maples and stays damp; that is where the paint peels and the mildew grows. Ice on the bays keeps the shoreline cold later into spring, so we usually start Orono exteriors on the road side in May and save the water side for June and July. We also see a lot of stucco here, on the older cottages and on lake homes, and stucco wants its own prep: patched cracks, an alkali-tolerant primer and a breathable finish.
Neighborhoods and how we get there
From our shop it is Hwy 12 east into Orono, with County Road 6 as the back way. Long Lake, the separate small city that Orono surrounds, is where the Orono Public Schools campus is, and the neighborhoods fan out from there: Navarre and Crystal Bay along North Shore Drive on the east side, Stubbs Bay and Maxwell Bay in the middle, and the Hwy 12 acreage on the west. Zoning around the bays keeps things residential, so most of what we paint in Orono is single-family: lake homes, the older streets off North Shore Drive, and the new custom homes on teardown lots. We do finish painting for west-metro custom builders, and Orono's teardown lots are exactly that kind of job.
Interior painting in Orono
Orono interiors are lake-house interiors: big windows on the water side that throw hard light across every wall, wood ceilings, painted built-ins and trim packages that were done well the first time and deserve the same care again. We paint a lot of those in winter, when the lake is quiet and nobody minds the house being staged for a week. Before you call, here is How interior painting goes, and what moves the cost.
Exterior painting in Orono
On an Orono lake home the water side and the road side are two different jobs. We scope them separately: sun and wind damage on the bay side, moisture and mildew on the shaded side. Cedar and stucco are the common older claddings here, fiber cement on the new builds, and each gets its own prep. Season is roughly May through mid-October, water side in the driest weeks. See exterior house painting and siding painting.
Where we work in Orono
- Navarre
- Crystal Bay
- Stubbs Bay
- Maxwell Bay
- Browns Bay
- North Arm
- Long Lake
Painting services in Orono
Questions from OronoStraight answers.
Do you paint lake homes on Lake Minnetonka in Orono?
Yes. Orono is our main Lake Minnetonka town, and lake homes on the north shore bays are a steady part of our exterior season. We treat the water side and the shaded side as separate scopes, because they fail for different reasons. We also do lake-home interiors in winter, when the house is quiet and the docks are in.
Our Orono cottage is stucco from the 1940s. Can you paint it?
Yes. Older stucco on the bays is common and it paints well if it is prepped right: cracks patched, chalky areas washed, an alkali-tolerant primer, then a breathable finish so moisture in the wall can get out. If the stucco has been coated with the wrong product before, we test a spot first and tell you what we found.
Can you get to the water side of the house if the lot drops to the lake?
Usually. Steep lake lots are ladder and plank work, sometimes staging, and we walk the site before quoting so the price reflects the access. Where a wall is only reachable from below a retaining wall or from the dock side, we plan that part for calm days and tell you up front how we will do it.
Do you paint new custom homes on teardown lots in Orono?
Yes. We do finish painting for west-metro custom builders, and Orono teardowns are some of the nicest work: primed drywall, tall trim, built-ins and sprayed cabinets on a builder's timeline. If you are the owner on one of those builds, you can talk to us directly about colors, sheens and finishes.