Six houses, and what was wrong with each.
Photographs of finished rooms all look the same. What is worth knowing is what the room looked like on the Monday.
MontclairInterior9 days
Four rooms, one colour, and ceilings nobody had touched since 1994
Thirty years of nail holes and two settlement cracks across the hall ceiling. The cracks were cut out and filled flexible rather than skimmed.
Glen RidgeExterior14 days
Six days of scraping before a drop of paint went on
A 1926 house painted three times over failing paint. Two porch columns were soft at the base and were replaced before anything was primed.
VeronaCabinets6 days
Thirty-one doors, sprayed in the shop, back on in one afternoon
Oak, previously in a yellowed oil. Degreased, grain filled, and sprayed in a booth. Brushing it in the kitchen would have shown every stroke.
CaldwellExterior trim5 days
Sash windows that had been painted shut for a decade
Every sash cut free, the stops eased, then primed and finished. They open now, which was most of the point.
NutleyInterior4 days
A colour the owner had been talked out of twice
Three sample pots on the wall for a week before anybody committed. Dark over light needs a tinted primer and three coats, and we said so up front.
BloomfieldInterior11 days
A rental turnover between tenants, on a hard deadline
Whole apartment, two crews, finished on the Friday for a Saturday move-in. Same prep as anywhere else, which is the only reason it held.
Yours could be on here.
Forty minutes, a written list and a number. No deposit to find out.