The other difficult part is getting a painting contractor to show up. While this generalization does not apply to every painter, personally I am extremely grateful if I can get a paint contractor to show up to look at the house and to later produce a written estimate. I hardly fault the painting contractors, because I think it is a combination of the contractors being smaller operations along with a high demand for their work.
house Painting Designs And Colors
house Exterior Painting Ideas
Specify whether the contractor or you will supply the paint. Check Consumer Reports' paint ratings: In its tests, some relatively inexpensive paints performed better than more expensive paints and cost $10 to $20 less per gallon. But keep in mind that most paints will resist cracking, peeling, mold and mildew. Who does the painting — and how well they do it — is more important than what's in the bucket.
As you walk through your lighted rooms (preferably day light) see if the new coat has light spots showing the precious paint. This is call "bleeding through". This means that there's only one coat of paint or the paint was diluted or the trasition of colors were from light to dark (or the other way around) and primer was not use or the painter is inexperienced.
A painted SureSwatch is the perfect color visualization A painted SureSwatch is the perfect color visualization tool for seeing your paint colors on your wall before starting your painting project. After painting the SureSwatch simply remove the liner and apply to the wall. The low tack adhesive allows you to easily apply and just as easily remove the ... More + Product Details Close
This was very helpful. I wonder if i would really follow through and check to see if my painter was cheating me. I used a painter I found on Angie's List. This was 5 years ago. He did a great job. I know he did patching only for about a day and a half. We decided on the kind of paint before he started. that is what he used. I don't know if I could stay on top of him and watch him open every can of paint. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube.be&v=b6_WEt9k_Hw
I started my young life as a yacht painter in my grandfather's boat shop at 12 and have been painting and house building all my life. We built boats of wood because we had nothing better, we built homes of wood because we had nothing better. I grew up putting wood siding (cedar, redwood) on houses, it was the best we had. Now I tell people use cement siding, paint it once every thirty years if it needs it or not.
Ask companies to include all details in writing. Although that sounds simple enough, too many contractors submit offers such as "paint house for $5,000." A friendly contractor may offer a reassuring handshake and promise that the crew will take care of all the details — starting on time, working every day, cleaning up, etc. That's great, but why not include each point in the proposal? If it's a challenge to get a written description of labor, materials and other details, things will probably get worse when the work starts.
