Experience Our Local Painter’s Craftsmanship

We call ourselves Craftsman Painters because we love to strip surfaces down to their essentials and make them beautiful again. Learn more about who we are and our commitment to the highest-quality, handcrafted work you’ll find in the Bay Area.

Every year, on our daughter’s birthday, however old she is, we are celebrating that many years in business. The day we came home from the hospital with our new baby, we had a brand-new contractor’s license waiting for us.

I didn’t mean to become a contractor. My father and my uncles were and are, builders. I grew up around construction sites. Then college, then activist work in support of indigenous communities resisting industrial projects that impacted their ancestral lands. And then I went back to the land to apprentice in a small, local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Local, local, local. There is nothing more important than supporting local endeavors!

It was during this time that Ernesto and I began our life together and started to make plans. With his lifelong skills in the trades, my business expertise, and our shared values, we knew that we could deliver a different experience for our clients. And so, I became a painting contractor. As our company and children grew, we also helped to found a co-operative, Spanish immersion preschool.

I am an idealist. I believe that heart and intention come first. Our lives and business are intentionally centered around enhancing home, family, and community.

Painting a home or a public building, especially doing so using sustainable materials and practices, is an act of preservation as well as beautification and self-care. It enhances people’s individual lives and our communities. Wherever I live and whatever I do, I want to make that place better.

We do that in our Company with the way we go about our work and the way we run our business. Our staff is family within a family-owned company. We promote from within. Many of our painters are brothers and cousins and many have been with us since we started. And this year we have begun training the next generation, having sons work alongside their fathers, and having our daughter Sofia work in our office.

Through Arana Craftsman Painters, Ernesto and I strive to strengthen the community around us, the Bay Area, where we live, play, and raise our children.

My Mother’s surname is Arana and I am Ernesto Perez Arana. I originally come from Guatemala, but I often say that I was born again in San Francisco, Dolores Park to be exact.

In the 1980s I made the City my home and that there is where I took up the Craft, the trade of painting homes. I work with my hands and while I was in the City, it was me and all of those beautiful home canvases; as many as I could possibly paint. I wasn’t just good at it, I was great. I could manage all of the details, prepare any surface to accept paint and ultimately, I could wield a brush and hit a straight line like nobody’s business. I am old enough to not have used a sprayer in my work. I brushed and rolled everything while scaling 40-foot ladders, up and down the faces of Victorian beauties, Edwardian edifices, Tudor facades and of course the Sunset and Richmond district tract homes. I still cannot get enough of the multitude of Bay Area architectural styles.

My company, Arana Craftsman Painters, has become my Swan Song. In the 1980s and 90s, I worked for several great companies like Armstrong, De Martini / Arnott, and Perfection Painting – which is exactly what we did – we worked to Perfection. Catherine and I gave birth to our first child in 2004 and decided to move to the East Bay. Once again, I was leaving a place I had woven myself, my love, and my memories into. I knew every inch of the city, but my kids needed a yard, we needed a parking space and I was ready to begin again.

Here in the East Bay we got to paint a whole new set of architecture; Craftsman and California Bungalows, Mediterranean and Spanish style and of course the eclectic mix of the Oakland fire zone. And that is just the Exterior. Interior painting requires so much more care.

I am obsessed with painting my clients’ homes, for beauty’s sake yes, but also for the long-term health of their families and neighborhoods. Painting is the most rewarding of the trades. We can transform while at the same time protect, maintain, and boost a home’s value. You might say we have magic paintbrushes! But, while we can’t always turn a frog into a Prince, we can change, preserve, and elongate the life of almost any surface.

Thank you to all of you who trusted your home with us!

I am a journalist, marketing writer, editor, photographer, teacher, improviser, storyteller, consultant, and coach. In all of these roles, I find the heart of a story or a project, and help it become manifest — in words or pictures. I evoke, capture, shape, produce, execute. And, I make connections. I connect people to each other, business owners to customers, charities to donors, contractors to vendors, information-seekers to the information they seek. (Read more about all of my facets in an article that Catherine and I wrote about me, here.)

I was drawn to working for the home design and remodeling industry as soon as I launched my marketing writing and consulting business in 2009. At that time, I noticed that I had an affinity for working with interior designers, architects, builders, and related industry contractors — people whose work combined aesthetics with creating spaces that nurture; people whose businesses were born from a combination of entrepreneurial spirit, skill, craft, and he(art).

My friendship with Catherine began in 2011, when she joined the Business Growth Network, a BNI group where I was a member. One year later, partly on Catherine’s good advice, I enrolled my son in kindergarten at the same elementary school that her and Ernesto’s kids attended. Then, in 2014, I hired Arana Craftsman Painters to paint the exterior of my Oakland home, and of course, the work was exquisite and eco-conscious — a must-have for me! Not to mention the fabulous palette I chose with the assistance of Cass Morris, whose services were included in the exterior painting contract.

In 2018, I came on board with Arana as marketing writer and consultant, and since then I have co-written and edited the majority of the Arana’s blog articles including profiles on staff, customers, and colleagues; as well as informative pieces describing painting and staining processes and home-care related topics; and interviews with some of the Bay Area’s premier contractors and interior designers. More recently I have been photographing some of Arana’s projects for the portfolio, as well.

In 2022, I joined the team as Business Development Manager, adding my capacities as a consummate networker to the already long list of ways I offer my skills and talents to supporting her company and its mission.

I am proud to be a part of Arana. Catherine and Ernesto do excellent work and they value being conscious contributors to the health and well-being of their staff, clients, and communities. Especially because my own personal values are reflected here, I enjoy having the opportunity to build relationships with industry colleagues and partners on Arana’s behalf.

My brother was a painter with Arana and he introduced me to Catherine and Ernesto, and they started me off working in the warehouse. This was in 2009; I was 22 years old at the time. I was in charge of keeping the shop clean, keeping materials stocked, cleaning brushes, rollers and equipment, and doing entry-level paint tasks such as sanding and scraping the cabinet doors that get brought back to our location for refinishing.

After proving myself in that position, I was offered an opportunity to work on a crew and fully learn the trade and the craft of painting. I was put on a two-person team with our current Production Manager, Juan Rivas and I gained valuable skills and insights from him – as well as other experienced Crew Leaders. After that, I was promoted to Crew Leader myself and then in January 2023, I was offered the opportunity to become Arana’s Estimator. It has been exciting to progress in the company like this!

What matters most to me about painting is the end result. When we start on a project, we are looking at a house that is really in need of repair and restoration, and the paint process and the eventual revival of that house is so satisfying to see. The end result is beautiful, another house transformed – healed from the past effects of weather and time.

Now that I am Arana’s Estimator, I use the knowledge I gained in the field to inform each one of my site visits. I know what it takes to do the job right, because I learned Arana’s ‘Craftsman Way’ and I did those jobs myself.

I treat every one of our clients’ homes as if it were my own home. We provide a good product that clients are happy with and that I can feel proud of. That’s how I am in my own life; and that is my overall philosophy: Do things right. It just has to be that way.

I have always worked to make things better around me. I always want to keep learning and growing. And of course I want to provide for my family: My wife, my stepdaughter whom I have helped to raise and who is now in college, and our younger daughter who is almost 2 and loves to play soccer. She has her own ball that she kicks around. Almost every day we play with her ball; I juggle it and she laughs. When she gets old enough I’m going to put her on a team!

Now, in my second year as Estimator for Arana, I see a career path ahead of me full of possibility. I enjoy meeting new clients and discussing your projects, making recommendations for the best approach, and bringing your homes up-to-date on maintenance. Being in this role is the perfect application of my skills and values. It is work I feel really good about. I look forward to meeting you on your next site visit!