The part of the quote nobody itemises.
Filling, sanding, caulking and priming. The work that is finished before anyone sees a colour, written out the way it appears on your estimate.
Interior, before anything is opened
Every line below is on your estimate with a quantity beside it. If it is not there, we are not doing it on your job, and you can hold us to that.
- 01 Everything out, or wrapped where it stands Furniture moved to the middle and covered, pictures and switch plates off and bagged with their screws, floors papered along every route the crew walks. Not a drop cloth thrown over the sofa.
- 02 Wash, then de-gloss Kitchens and baths get washed. Anything previously in oil or high gloss gets scuffed so the new coat has something to hold. Paint does not stick to grease and it does not stick to gloss.
- 03 Fill, then sand, then fill again Nail holes, anchor holes, dents and the corner the vacuum has been hitting for nine years. Two passes, because filler shrinks as it dries and one pass leaves a dimple you will see under a lamp.
- 04 Cracks opened before they are filled A settlement crack gets cut out to a V and filled with a flexible compound. Skimmed over, it is back by February. This is the single most common thing we find done badly.
- 05 Caulk every joint that moves Trim to wall, casing to jamb, baseboard to floor. Measured in feet on your estimate. It is the difference between a room that looks painted and a room that looks finished.
- 06 Spot prime everything bare Filler, raw drywall, knots, water stains and any repair. Unprimed filler drinks the finish coat and flashes dull in exactly the spots you patched.
- 07 Two finish coats Always two, including ceilings, including white on white. One coat is a primer with an opinion.
- 08 Put the room back Plates on, furniture returned to where it was, floors vacuumed, and a walk with you before the van leaves rather than a text the next day.
Exterior, where the money actually goes
Exterior failure is almost never the paint. It is what was under it, or the weather it was put on in. Six days of the two weeks you are quoted are spent before a finish coat goes anywhere.
- 01 Scrape to sound paint Everything loose comes off, then the edges get feathered so you do not see the map of the old coat through the new one. Houses built before 1978 are handled under EPA lead-safe rules, containment and all.
- 02 Wash and let it dry Low pressure, because high pressure drives water behind the siding. Then it dries. Painting damp siding is how you get a coat that peels in sheets in year two.
- 03 Rot out, new wood in Soft trim, sills and corner boards replaced rather than filled. We will show you what we found and what it costs before we cut anything.
- 04 Prime all bare wood the same day Bare wood left open overnight takes on moisture, and the primer then seals it in. Scraped in the morning, primed by the afternoon.
- 05 Caulk after priming, never before Caulk sticks to primer, not to bare wood. Doing it in the wrong order is why the joints open again.
- 06 Two coats, and not in the wrong weather Not below 50 degrees, not on a surface in direct afternoon sun, not with rain inside the recoat window. We would rather lose a day than lose the job in three years.
What we do not do
Painting over wallpaper. Painting over active mould without finding the water first. Painting a deck floor, which fails no matter who does it, though we will stain one. Matching a colour from a photograph on a phone.
We also do not take a deposit to give you a number. The estimate is free and it is yours to take to somebody else.
The warranty
Three years on our workmanship, on top of whatever the manufacturer covers on the product. If something we did fails in that window, we come back and put it right.
It is written on the estimate, not on a page like this one.