 Spring has finally sprung and here I sit undone!
The painting and remodeling business is feast and famine, knock on doors, paint some houses fix some floors and then its on to decks galore! But here I sit still undone, I'd rather write its way more fun; yet I have to pay the bills and feed myself so its back to the work again and again. Oh why do I post these long laments? Am I tired of working or is it no common sense? You see the facts in the truth are all about me... THE DECISION IS MINE so we'll just wait and see...
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People always ask me, "How much does it cost to paint my house?" I don't know. How much does it cost to buy a car? How much is a pair of pants? What does a dining room table and chairs cost? Heck, I don't know!
Well... Unfortunately there is no standard answer and even two homes built exactly alike on the same street can be two different prices. Why is that? Because with painting there are just too many variables. Things such as how much landscaping do you have in the way. Is your trim a different color than the body of the house. Do you need a lot of scraping and preparation work and so on. So no, there are no standard prices but I can give you a general idea based on my 40 years as a house painter. On average most of the homes I paint are your standard housing project average size two story home. Those run around $3000 up to maybe $5000 for a bigger model. Ranch homes with a simple design and standard siding can be anywhere from $1200 to $2500. And the BIG HOUSES WELL THEY CAN START AT $6500 AND GO TO OVER $12,000. Old victorian homes and historic homes with multi colored trim and brick a brack, fancy lintels and overhangs etc. can run easily over $15,000 or more. The most expensive home I have ever painted was $22,000 but we rarely run into jobs like that. So I hope that answers your question as to how much will it cost to paint your car! Hey, just kidding friend, if you need your car painted why not call EARL SCHIEB AUTOBODY. LAST TIME I SAW THEIR AD ON TV IT WAS ONLY $99.95 WITH NO UPS AND NO EXTRAS! So give them a call today but please what ever you do make sure you get a hold of WWW.CALL-A-PAINTER.COM first because we could really use your business! Customers are always asking me what do you do when you paint my home? So here is a brief explanation of how we go about prepping your homes exterior prior to painting or staining.
First on the list is a complete inspection of the homes exterior from top to bottom to assess the potential problems we may encounter. We make out a list of everything we see that needs to be done then take that to the homeowner for review. Not everyone wants everything done that we may suggest and that's ok; but we have to let you know whats what and then let you take it from there. Sometimes someone needs some questionable pieces of siding replaced but may not want to spend the money at that particular point in time, but we have to let you know what your options are. Once we have your ok and a contract signed the first thing we do is spray your siding, gutters, downspouts and trim down with a mildewcide/bleach combination. This kills any mildew, algae or fungus growing on your paints substrate and stops it from growing underneath your new paint or stain job. This process alone will increase the life of your paint job by 100%. Anyone that tells you this does not need to be done is either too lazy to do it, is trying to lowball the job so they can get the work or is just plain ignorant and should get out of the painting business. Surface preparation is the most important part of the job and if it is not done correctly you are just wasting your money. Furthermore there are also some cedar sided homes that are just not worth painting due to the siding becoming too old, too porous, too soft or cupping to the point that it is not worth spending the money on to paint it. In that case it is just better for you to save your money and wait until you can replace it. The next thing we do is renail any loose nails, replace nails that will no longer hold and remove and replace old damaged caulk that is not worth painting over. Based on my 40 years of experience in the remodeling business most caulks that are used on homes don't last more than 10 years and some even less. A lot of cheap low budget painters will just caulk over the old caulk making you think you got a new caulk job or they won't even recaulk at all. Friend, if that's the case you probably just wasted $3000 or more on a paint job because I can guarantee you this. The paint job is going to outlast the caulk and a few years later when all the caulk starts to crack or peel you are going to be extremely disappointed with your paint job that you just wasted your hard earned money on. Though unfortunately some homeowners do not want to spend the extra money to replace their caulk but that is up to you. After the siding is dry from the power washing then we scrape off any loose paint or stain and prime the bare wood. Next comes the finish coat of paint or stain and depending on what material we are using and what color is being applied we will either apply one or two coats of paint. If you are staining the house with a semitransparent stain we will apply one coat. Anymore than that and you are taking a chance with the stain peeling on you. If you are changing colors most likely you will need two coats of paint or stain. If we are applying SHERWIN WILLIAMS SOLID COLOR LATEX STAIN OVER THE SAME COLOR one coat sprayed and backrolled will be sufficient. And that is basically how we do the job. Other more detailed jobs may include replacement of old siding, replacing window trim and or soffit and fascia repairs or replacements. No two jobs are ever alike and every house is different. So there you have it! Any questions you can contact me on my CONTACT PAGE ON THE TOP OF MY WEBSITE. OR just call me right now without further delay at 262-903-0298 Just the other day I was out doing my door to door sales when I noticed a home where the paint was all mildewed. (Like I mean REALLY REALLY bad!) So I knocked on the guys door and he came out to talk to me. He said, "Yea we are thinking about painting again". So I made the comment that the mildew on the house was really bad. I asked him how long ago did you get that done? And he replied, " Five years ago". I asked him if he could remember who did the work and he told me the guys name and I'm thinking to myself, "Yea, that's why it didn't last, he's another one of those low budget painters who underbids everyone so he can get his big crew of $10/hour painters in there and get in and out as fast as he can.
It was obvious he used cheap paint and never bothered to clean the siding first with a mildewcide/bleach solution because if he had this guy wouldn't have the problems he's got. And... a good paint job should last at least 8-10 years. Well, mine do anyway because we do it right the first time! So friend, the moral to the story is this: DON'T HIRE SOMEONE TO PAINT YOUR HOUSE UNTIL YOU ASK SPECIFICALLY WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DO AND HOW THEY ARE GOING TO DO IT and then make sure it gets done that way because way too many people just seem to automatically trust contractors without asking a lot of questions. But then again they probably don't really know what to ask. Here at Call A Painter we are right up front about what we do and how we do it and what materials we use so you know you are going to get a TOP QUALITY/ A-1 JOB every single time! My reputation is more important than how much money I can make off off you and that is why I have been in business for 40 years! One day a husband came home from work in the middle of the summer and his wife was in the living room painting the walls with a roller and brush but she was wearing two different coats. Her nice new fur coat on the inside and a plastic raincoat on the outside. The husband immediately blurts out, "What the heck are you doing honey, why are you wearing those coats? Its 89 degrees outside, are you losing your mind?." And she replied, " No, Honey I just read the can and the instructions said to put on two coats for the best results. Why? Should I only put on one?
About a couple of months ago I had a conversation with a woman who worked at the Home Depot. She saw all the paint all over my shirt and asked me if I painted houses for a living. I replied, "Yes! I do."
And then she began to tell me her sob story of how she hired a painter who was a friend of a friend of a friend of someone who worked with her husband. Well, anyway to make a long sad story short she hired the guy without checking out his REFERENCES, and gave him $2000 to start the job. He showed up the next day and got started on the job but it all went downhill from there. He started coming up with all kinds of excuses and would show up either late or not come at all the next day. After about a week of this and with very little work down on the house he never showed up again. She called and called but no return calls. She talked to her husband about it and he tried to get ahold of the guy but couldn't. Guess what? She got ripped off of $2000. And I told her to call the police and file a report on him and take it from there. But she didn't want to do that because she was afraid he was going to do something bad to her house or her family. So she just let it go! Now how sad is that? And friend this is not the first time I have heard these stories. In fact it happens quite often. So my advice to you is if you plan on hiring anyone for anything, you better make sure you check out there references. Call some of their past customers. Go look at their work if you have to but don't give money to people who cannot prove their reliability. Or you might just end up like her! Just yesterday I was out doing my door to door sales when I spotted a home that looked pretty bad. So I got out of the truck and knocked on the door. This guy comes out and he was really friendly and we started talking about painting. Come to find out he just moved in and the house was just painted last year! OMG! Thats all I could think to myself.
So I start asking him some questions, and I guess what happened was right before they moved in they got the house painted by a very inexperienced low budget painter who failed to do the most important part of the job which was to first clean the siding off with a mildewcide and then power wash off the chemicals. The next big mistake this painter made was to spray paint the whole house without bankrolling or brushing any of the stain into the surface of the cedar siding. This in turn caused the solid color stain to begin peeling off the already dirty surface that he just painted over. TWO BIG MISTAKES! HERE IS THE BOTTOM LINE: The prep work is the most important part of the painting job as well as the part that usually takes the longest. Failure to properly prepare the surface will lead to serious problems years later or at a minimum cause your paint job to last only half the time. Which means you will be spending twice as much to have your home repainted. SO WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? Make sure you ask a lot of questions concerning how your home is going to be painted or stained. Make sure the painting contractor is reputable and can provide lots of written proof or phone numbers of satisfied customers before you spend your hard earned money. To be quite honest with you I make most of my money as a painter re-doing other painters shoddy work. You see the problem with the painting business is this: Anyone can start a painting business for less than $300. So be careful. We have been painting homes since 1982 and have lots of credible references to prove the quality of work we do. Thats what is important! OH YEA AND WHEN YOU HAVE A PROBLEM CALL A PRO LIKE ME! BECAUSE WHEN I PAINT OR STAIN YOUR HOME YOU CAN BE ASSURED THE JOB IS GONNA BE PROBLEM FREE! AND THAT'S OUR GUARANTEE TO YOU! The most important part of any painting job is proper preparation. I can't even begin to tell you how many people and even contractors paint the outside of a home without even cleaning the exterior off with the proper chemicals to ensure a paint job that lasts.
Preparation of the surface is everything and without it your paint job will fail. Even if the house looks clean I can assure you it is not! Mildew and mold that grows on the paint is sometimes difficult to spot unless you look very closely at the surface. And if you want to see just what I am talking about just mix up about 8 parts of water to one part of household bleach and spray it or sponge it on the surface you are thinking about painting and I can guarantee you will start to see some blackish brown stains start to run down the side of your home. That's the bleach killing the mildew. And that is what you want to get rid of if you want a paint job that is going to last more than a couple years. Just power washing a house down is not enough.You have to kill the mildew. Yet if you do decide to paint without killing the mildew first , what's going to happen is the fresh new paint over time will become the food for the old mildew and sooner than later your paint job is going to fail. So whoever paints your home; just make sure they get rid of your mold and mildew first or you just wasted a few thousand dollars on a bum paint job! Nuff said..... |
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