In The News

You can read about Bill Reinert and what he does in these articles. Bill likes to use his talents to help make his local community a better place.

Volunteers keep Paint Your Heart Out alive

Group hopes to paint 10 houses this summer

By Susan Goracke of the Daily Courier

When word got out earlier this year that the city of Grants Pass’ 22nd Paint Your Heart Out event had been canceled this summer due to lack of funding, organizer Laura Zeliff heard from community members who didn’t want to see the program die.

Since 1988, volunteers have painted the exteriors of 239 homes of people without the physical ability or financial means to give their own home a face-lift. “So I just said, if there are people willing to do this, I’ll see that we put it together,” said Zeliff, the city Public Safety deputy chief who has volunteered with the program for the past five years.

Bill Reinert, a local interior designer, also is helping organize this year’s event, set for Sept. 12.

In past years, the volunteer program had been headed by former City Attorney Ulys Stapleton. Dean Saxon, who had provided paint and materials when he owned Dutch Boy Paints, sold his business to Rodda Paints.

This year, Jerry Young, who purchased Caveman Color in 2008, has stepped forward to provide paint and materials to Paint Your Heart Out at half-price. “I like to give back to the community,” said Young, who also donates money to high school baseball teams and the Grants Pass Soccer Club. “If it’s in the budget, and I can do it, and it’s a local group, I try to help out.”

Young said he expects to pro- vide up to 200 gallons of paint, plus sundries for the community painting effort. Two of his sup- pliers, Miller Paint and Pratt & Lambert, are offering him dis- counts on their products to help offset costs.

Zeliff reports that so far, seven people representing businesses and churches have volun- teered to head teams. She’d like to see three more teams sign up so the program can paint 10 homes. Each team needs more volunteers, plus $300 to help pay for the cost of materials, Zeliff said. Team members are encouraged to provide as much of their own painting equipment — including scrapers, wire brushes, paint brushes, rollers, pans and lad- ders — as possible.
Also needed are businesses or individuals to lend equipment such as power washers and paint sprayers.

Team members usually spend a couple of weekends prior to paint day doing prep work on homes, Zeliff explained. “We’ve had great interest and we have wonderful volun- teers,” Zeliff said, adding that teams from the city, Newman Methodist Church, MasterBrand Cabinets and SOFCU Community Credit Union are among those already on board. Zeliff asks that people interested in forming or joining a team or applying to have a house painted call her at 471- 6434 or Reinert at 761-1099. Applications for homeowners can be picked up at the city’s Administration Office at 101 N.W. A St. She said she and other team members plan to offer homeowners a selection of approved paint colors and help them choose a palette of colors to fit the style of the home and blend with its surrounding neighborhood.

Painting is available to homeowners with limited incomes, who are either senior citizens or have a disability, and who live in their own home inside the Grants Pass city limits or its urban growth boundary.

The steering committee will select applicants giving priority to those in most need, Zeliff noted. Also, painting the home should improve the neighborhood or community at large.

“I think this community has tremendous empathy for other people, and I’m just thrilled that people have come forward to keep this program going,” she said. “Those who spend a little bit of time and a little bit of effort helping others, it enriches them.”

Former Set Decorator  Building Design Business

William Reinert will use ideas from film career on local projects

by Susan Goracke of The Daily Courier

No, he won’t turn your home into a prison, a frat house or a submarine– but he could if you’d like.

Interior designer Bill Reinert, who moved with his wife, Judith, to grants Pass about a year ago, has brought his considerable experience as a career Hollywood set decorator to his new local endeavor, Reinert Design Interiors.

For more than 30 years, Reinert created sets for Universal Studios, Paramount and Disney, as well as for a number of independent studios. His movie credits include “Hunt for red October,” “Animal House,” “Terminator 3″ and “The Jackal.”

He has worked on TV series such as “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Designing Woman,” “Knight Rider” and “Dragnet.”

Yet since 1984, when he graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s in interior design, Reinert also has owned and operated an interior design company.

“I use ideas from all my films in interiors design,” Reinert said, noting that a designer of both homes and sets must please the client and come in at or under budget.

But unlike in Hollywood, where sets are broken down within a day or week- or they’re intended to blow up- a home’s interior must last for years, and building materials must meet code, he explained.

Reinert was born in Cincinnati, but moved with his parents to Santa Monica while he was in elementary school. After graduating from University High School in West Los Angeles, he worked in the aerospace industry, researching and testing small thrust rockets for both the Gemini and Apollo programs.

Later, he entered the motion picture industry, where he worked his way up to set decorator. He learned his new trade on the sets of such TV medical dramas as “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” and “Emergency,” filmed during the early 1970s.

In his last film, “Terminator 3,” starring current California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Reinert created a half-mile street “from nothing” in Downey, Calif., before it was destroyed in the film.

“I was given a $275,000 budget to do that half-mile street, and I came in at $270,000,” he said. “Once I had to make an empty space into a bank by the next morning. My point is that I had to know how to work with a budget and still keep everyone happy.”

Reinert said he equates finding furniture to decorate a set or a home to a huge scavenger hunt.

“It’s a challenge and it’s fun,” he said. “You would be surprised at what paint can do. I’ve seen painters turn something brand new into something very old, or something horrible into something nice. Because I have that kind of experience my mind works like that.”

Reinert’s Grants Pass business is a full-service design firm which provides everything from consulting on a project to creating an entire interior from scratch, including conception, space planning drawings and presentation boards.

Reinert is available by appointment at 541-761-1099.