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EMAIL: contact@bluedoorpainters.com
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Painting 102: Anatomy of a Roller Stroke
After you find a roller with a sturdy frame, make sure you get the right container for the job, an extender and a roller cover that matches your paint and substrate.
Detailed Instructions on How To Use a Roller from Washington, DC Area Contractor
Presumably you’ve been following along on our detailed description of how to paint a surface, and you’re now looking at an area with all the edges and corners masterfully cut in with a brush (in accordance with our instructions). If not, take a minute to check out Painting 101: Anatomy of a Brushstroke, to get you caught up to that point. If you’re just curious for some advice on how to wield your roller, you’ve come to the right place.
First of all, while there isn’t quite as much variety in rollers as there is in brushes, you still need to take some care to purchase high quality equipment. The cheap all-in-one roller set-ups will not usually give you the same longevity or smoothness of finish as a pro set-up; and the rip-off is, the pro set-ups aren’t really that much more expensive! Here is what you’ll need:
1) A good sturdy roller frame. It should be expandable, with bearings at the sides and threads at the bottom, and made of strong, heavy-gauge wire. (Reusable)
2) An extender or thread-ended broom handle to help you reach out-of the way spots. (Reusable)
3) A paint container. While most hardware stores push paint trays, you can get more use, and better utility, out of a 5-gallon bucket with a vertical bucket-screen mounted inside it. The bucket can hold a lot more paint than a tray, allowing for less time between refills, it is easier to transport from spot to spot, or to cover if you need to take a lunch break, and the vertical tray draws extra paint off the roller more effectively than the nearly-horizontal tray. Most professionals use a bucket and screen set-up; there is no reason why you shouldn’t, too. (Reusable).
4) High-quality roller covers that match your paint and substrate. The general rule of thumb for rolling is, the rougher the substrate, and the more viscous the paint, the longer the roller nap. Smoother surfaces and thicker paint can be rolled with a smoother, short-sheared cover, while rough surfaces and runny paint will benefit from a longer-napped cover. Good quality covers have a plastic core, rather than cardboard. Cardboard cores can start to soften after absorbing paint, and the glue holding the nap can dissolve in certain solvents, causing the roller to fall apart halfway through the job. Each paint you use needs its own roller cover.
Once you have your equipment, load the roller by submerging it halfway into the paint, then rolling it up the screen. Repeat this motion several times, until the roller is saturated and nearly dripping with paint.
Next: how to actually roll your paint? There are several competing strategies for creating the smoothest possible distribution of paint with a roller, all of which expand upon the principle of “wet-edge”. Wet-edge is the theory that a fresh stroke of paint should always be overlapped with the wettest paint from the previous stroke, so that the paint dries to form a continuous film. With a roller, using wet-edge techniques can avoid both seams and roller marks; two common imperfections of an amateur paint job. Here we are going to describe the classic ‘W’ technique.
Start from one corner of your surface, about six inches from each edge. Move your roller up and down to create a large ‘W’ shape, filling in the center of a large section. Once you have your W, use small strokes to spread out the paint, filling in the remaining unpainted space. You can leave paint stokes and roller marks at this point in the process, the goal being to get as much wet paint on a large surface area as possible. Next, reload your roller and move to an adjacent section of your surface, and repeat the process, creating another W and filling it in, overlapping the old section slightly with your small strokes to fill in the margins. Finally, without reloading your roller, go over both sections together, smoothing out lumps, eliminating roller marks, and making the paint film continuous.
Since it covers so much area so quickly, and since it usually marks the end of a job, rolling is a very satisfying process. Invest in the right equipment, purchase the right paint, and by the end of this step, you will be ready to celebrate a beautifully coated surface and a job well done!
Painting 101: The Anatomy of a Brush Stroke
Experienced painters, like the one shown above, have steady hands and lack the need for painters tape to get a clean-cut edge.
Detailed Description of the Painting Process From a Washington DC Area Contractor
Many handyman articles will tell you the basics about paint: what it is, what types there are, common pitfalls associated with it. They will tell you what paint to buy, what colors to pick, what equipment to use, how many coats to apply, and when to apply them. They will tell you how to know if you made a mistake, how to deal with complications, and what steps to take to fix any errors. But when it comes time to get started painting your house, you may still find yourself staring dubiously into a freshly opened can of paint, paintbrush gripped nervously in one hand, feeling a little bit unsure about your next move.
So what Blue Door Painters is going to share with you today is exactly how to make that first move: a single brushstroke of paint.
You’re going to start your project with brushing. That’s true for almost every project; a typical room, for example, will need to have the edges and corners of the paint area cut in with a paintbrush before the larger open surface area is rolled. For corners in between two surfaces that are going to be painted, the whole corner should be brushed, up to 3 inches out on each wall. For edges between a paint surface and a non-paint surface, applying painters’ tape on the non-paint surface prior to brushing will make your project easier and less stressful, (though experienced painters with reliably steady hands sometimes skip that step). The paint surface should be coated up to 3″ from the edge with a paintbrush prior to rolling. For other surfaces, like trim or stair steps, you may do the entire project with a brush, lacking the surface area to justify a roller (although in some cases a mini-roller will yield a better finish). For these, if there is a large enough space to distinguish the edges from the center, the edges should still be coated first.
So your paint can should be open, and your paint adequately mixed (if you detect any irregularity in the color, stir thoroughly with a paint stirrer, making sure to distribute the pigment all the way through the depth of the can). You should have a paintbrush – ideally, one picked specifically for your type of paint and substrate – in hand. Now it is time to dip your brush into the paint for the first time. Which brings up an often overlooked – but extremely important – question: how to load your paintbrush.
In order to get a thorough coating, you need to make sure that your paintbrush is completely saturated with paint on the inside. This means in between the bristles, where you can’t see it. Paint nested in between the bristles will release slowly and evenly over the course of your strokes, creating an even finish. You don’t want your brush overly saturated with paint on the outside of the bristles, however, because this extra paint will spread in unexpected directions, and will create drips and sags in your finish that can be challenging to correct.
So in order to load your paint onto the brush in the ideal manner, you should stab your paintbrush gently into the can of paint a couple times, working the paint up in between the bristles. After repeating this vertical motion your brush will be filled, and you need to remove excess paint from the bottom and outside of the brush. To do so, first hold it up for a couple seconds so that loose paint can drain. Once all remaining paint is staying on the brush in spite of gravity, run the bottom edge of the brush gently along the rim of the paint can or bucket, smoothing off the excess. If you are cutting an edge, repeat that motion with the face of at least one of the sides of your brush, wiping the paint on the outside of that surface against the rim. You should be left with a paintbrush that is saturated with paint on the inside, but is not dripping and is, if intended for an edge, cleared off on one face.
Start your brushstrokes at a corner of your surface, so that you can work outward from there is a continuous line. When you start the stroke, watch how far your paint spreads, and how thickly it is applied. Some types of paint (like semigloss) will be more viscous than others: DO NOT be tempted to spread this extra-runny paint more thickly to make up for the apparent lack of coverage. Doing so will lead to drips or paint sagging as the thick, runny paint fails to hold up to gravity for as long as it takes to dry. The only way to fix sags is by waiting for the paint to dry completely, sanding them down, and recoating that area – so prevention is really the best approach.
When your brush first touches the surface, you only need to press gently, because there will be paint on the outside of the brush. As you continue your stroke, however, you will need to increase the pressure, so that the paint from the inside of the brush comes out. The brush should bend gently in the opposite direction of your stroke, squeezing out the internal paint, and your grip should allow maximal control of both the direction and the pressure of the stroke. Use a full-hand grip for larger brushes, and a pencil grip for smaller ones. After a few tries, you will learn how your particular paint flows through your particular brush, so that you can perfect the exact right motion to ensure a stroke that is smooth, even, and the desired width.
Your next stroke should start off right where your previous stroke left off. This is called the ‘wet edge’, and it is a key principle in paint technique. Matching wet paint to wet paint usually causes two different strokes to blend together into a continuous whole, rather than developing an unsightly seam. If you find that you can still see a seam, wait until your next stroke is complete and the brush is relatively dry, but the paint is still wet, then lightly brush at the seam with the dry brush until the coat looks even.
When cutting in an edge, place the ‘clean’ side of the brush (meaning, the one you wiped against the paint can) against the edge. If it is taped, you will be able to press it firmly; if it is not taped, you will need to watch closely to find the perfect placement to give a thorough coating that doesn’t blot over to the non-paint surface. Working non-taped edges goes a lot more slowly, which is why taping is almost always worth the perceived trouble it causes.
Okay, now you’ve had your ‘next move’ described down to minute detail – and the 500 or so moves you make after that will all be the same until your brushed area is complete (that’s one thing about painting – it is a very repetitive process, and it gets easier as you get more experienced!) In our next blog, we’ll tackle the anatomy of the paintbrush’s big brother – the paint roller – and you will have your entire paint process laid out before you.
Top Five Reasons Why Paint Fails
Hasy application of a second coat of paint before the first coat is fully dry is a major cause of alligatoring.
Nothing is more frustrating than a failed paint job – especially if it fails right after it is applied. Luckily, the most common reasons for premature paint failure are well-known, and can be prevented. Here, Blue Door Painters lists the top five reasons for paint failure, and what can be done to prevent them.
1. Inadequate preparation. A surface needs to be thoroughly stripped of loose material, scraped, sanded, caulked, cleaned, and primed prior to application of a new coat of paint, or that paint does not have good odds of staying successfully adhered to the surface. Blue Door Painters follows a strict regimen of surface preparation before all of our jobs in order to prevent this form of failure.
2. Bad weather. The weather cannot be too cold or too wet while paint is drying and curing, or the film will not form adequately. For this reason, Blue Door Painters pays close attention to the weather when scheduling exterior jobs. Ideally, conditions should be warm and dry for 24 hours following a new paint job.
3. Cheap paint. While you don’t necessarily need to buy the premiere designer paints, the extremely cheap paints contain a surplus of useless filler components, and are not built to last. Blue Door Painters recommends purchasing a good, solid, tried-and-true brand of paint like Duron or Sherwin-Williams.
4. Improper priming. While some brands of paint claim that their products can be used without a primer, in our experience painting most surfaces without a primer is a recipe for coating failure. A prime coat is specially designed to adhere to the substrate – and should be selected to adhere to the specific substrate you are dealing with. It takes a different kind of paint to adhere well to metal, wood, drywall, old paint, masonry, etc. – and this is the specific purpose of your primer. In Blue Door Painters opinion, this is not a step that shoudl be skipped.
5. Hasty Application. Failing to wait for full drying and curing between coats, laziness in prepping the surface, and hasty application of paint leaving gaps in the continuous film are all leading causes of paint failure. Painting a wall may seem simple, but it really does need to be done right. Which is why Blue Door Painters staff are all held to the highest possible standards of craftsmanship, so that we produce a paint job that we can stand behind.
Prep: The Bedrock of Any Paint Job
Prep your surfaces before new paint jobs.
A paint job is only as good as the preparation that goes into it.
If there were a stone onto which the ten commandments of painting were carved, that one would be right at the top, all in capital letters.
In order for a paint job to work correctly, it has to stick to the surface it is meant to coat. That paint does stick to the surface is something that most people take for granted, but it is actually the result of years of clever engineering. Paint is a liquid, which, when spread across a vertical surface (or even applied to a ceiling, directly in opposition to gravity), rather than running down and collecting on the floor, stays adhered in a thin film where it is applied, forming a solid coating. Only a mixture with just the right viscosity and chemical composition can manage this feat that we take so much for granted.
And that is when the surface to which it is being applied is a continuous solid. What happens when you put a new coat of paint on top of a surface covered in loose material – dirt, grease, chipping or peeling remnants of an old paint or wallpapering job? Well, the new paint attempts to do what it was engineered to do – form a strong, continuous film. The problem is, when you form a continuous film over a discontinuous surface, tension gets added to the loose particles, and they tend to loosen further, pulling away from the rest of the surface. The film of paint covering therefore starts to get torn in different directions and pull away from its close adhesion to the rest of the surface, causing all sorts of problems. Take a wall with chipping paint, for example. If you paint over it, as the new paint dries, it contracts and adheres to the whole surface, including the flakes of loose paint. By contracting, it pulls some of those loose flakes off the wall. This may form cracks in the film between the paint adhered to the loose chip and the paint adhered to the rest of the wall. It also creates a void behind the film, in which moisture and mildew can collect, leading to the steady erosion of the film.
What is the solution to this problem? Extremely careful preparation of the surface before a new paint job is administered. Blue Door Painters follows a strict preparation regimen of stripping, sanding, scraping, caulking, replacing failing drywall and plaster, and thorough cleaning before administering any new coatings to a substrate. That way, we ensure that we have put up a coating that was truly prepared to last.
Challenges of Spring Weather (Painting and the Rain)
Moisture can ruin paint. An exterior job can take about 24 hours to cure. (photo by bjwok)
Discussion of the Seasonal Challenges Facing Exterior Painting Projects from a Washington, DC area Contractor
Scheduling exterior projects is always a little bit of a challenge for a painting company, because we cannot control the weather. We can buy the paint or stain, collect our equipment, and get our crew ready and onsite – but if the sky does not cooperate, we have to turn right back around and head home, scheduling the work for another day.
Why is that? Because coatings (coatings is an industry term for paints, stains, glazes, and any other finish that covers the surface of a substrate) do not dry, cure, and form a film correctly if the weather is too cold or too moist. The chemical components in most modern coatings contain water (there are still oil-based paints and stains out there, but they are slowly being replaced by water-based products due to the ease of cleanup, quick drying time, and environmental friendliness of water-based paints), and the way that the coatings dry and cure requires that water to evaporate, turning the substance from a liquid film to a solid coating. If the air is too humid, the water will not evaporate in its proper sequence, and the coating will therefore form inadequately and the entire paint job will likely fail. In the cold, not only is there insufficient heat to encourage the water to evaporate (it may, in fact, go in the opposite direction and freeze, which causes almost certain coating failure), the cool air can hold far less moisture and is therefore saturated much more easily, making it nearly impossible for water to evaporate.
For this reason, work on exterior projects stops during the cold season in temperate climates like the Washington, DC / Northern Virginia area. Once the temperature warms up, everyone in the industry – customers and contractors alike – are excited to resume exterior work. Early Spring is a good time to get your home beautified for summer, to up your curb appeal in time for the early June real estate sales rush, and to clean, stain, and seal your deck in order to protect it from the activity of the coming summer. However, with spring warmth comes an additional challenge, which can make it difficult to schedule exterior work – spring rains.
Needless to say, you can’t put wet paint up on the wall during a torrential downpour and expect it to stay up there and form a strong coating. But what many people don’t understand is that rainfall at any point during the critical drying/curing process can substantially effect the film formation, even if it seems like the coating is already dry. It takes the average exterior latex paint 4-6 hours to dry fully – but the curing process can take up to 24 hours, depending on the humidity. Extreme humidity preceding or following a rainstorm can greatly affect the paint’s dry time. Ideally, exterior jobs should be scheduled when the humidity is average or lower, and when there is no rain in the forecast for the next 24 hours.
Of course, in the Spring, days like those can be hard to come by. So the best bet for you, if you are planning an exterior project, is to schedule and contract your work early, so that it can be postponed until conditions are ideal (or as close to it as they’re going to get), and still meet your schedule, giving you a finished exterior in time for late spring and early summer enjoyment.
Spring Cleaning
Fresh paint = fresh look! (photo by Janaka Dharmasena)
Repainting Makes Your Walls Look Far Cleaner – Advice on Spring Cleaning from Washington, DC area painting contractor
It’s easy to look right past your old paint job without seeing it, you’re so used to the sight of the familiar grease stains, fingerprints, pen marks, and accumulated dust. It isn’t until you see your walls with a fresh paint job that you can really measure how dirty your walls have become over the years. Which is why a fresh paint job should be the centerpiece of your spring cleaning efforts.
On interiors, filth tends to collect on trim, in kitchens and bathrooms, and in high-traffic areas like hallways and stairwells. Even if the bulk of the surface area on your walls is in pretty good shape, buying a single gallon of paint in a lively color and freshening up the trim around doors, windows, and molding can make a huge difference in how fresh your house looks, not to mention giving you a good excuse to go for a color change in preparation for spring.
For the exterior, once the weather clears enough to get work done, you want to assess the damage done to your siding, masonry, decking, patios, and fences during the harsh winter months. Decks might have weathered from holding all of the winter’s snow, while siding and masonry might have sustained water damage. It is also worth inspecting your gutters, the rims of your roof, and the interior of your home just under the eaves for evidence of water damage resulting from ice dams. Once you have a solid inventory of the damage, getting your exterior repainted, and your deck or fencing stained and sealed, prior to the onset of the spring rains and prior to the full flowering of your spring landscaping, is a good way to beautify your exterior in anticipation of the spring.
Taking the time to repaint, even if it’s just a small area of your home, can really go a long way toward making your space look refreshed, and make you feel renewed and ready for spring.
The Three – Month Plan For Selling Your Home
Stage your home the right way. Make a plan. (photo by Simon Howden)
Get Started in March, Sell in June
Staging a home for sale can be a complicated process. Since June is the peak month for home sales (both the weather and the typical schedule of employment make it a desirable time to buy, sell, and move), it is a good idea to start getting ready in early March. That way, you can move through all the steps necessary to get your home ready in a leisurely manner, and be ready to hit the market with a bang come the hot season.
In March:
1. Take a thorough, searching inventory of your home, listing all of the ways it could be improved, and how much they are likely to cost versus how much they are likely to gain you in your sales price. Now is a good time to enlist a real estate agent or other consultant to help you with this process. You want to take note of anything that is:
- noticeably damaged (chipping or peeling paint, substrate damage, water damage, broken or run-down appliances, chipping tile or flagstone)
- noticeably stained, dirty, or run-down (impurity leaching, paint stained with grease or smoke, old and faded paint or stain)
- idiosyncratic, not universally appealing (strange color combinations)
Remember, when you sell a house, you want it to look strong, clean, and impersonal. That means that the bright mauve and blue that you have always loved in the downstairs bathroom, even though it is in decent shape, might be something you want to consider changing before you offer your home on the market, because unusual decorating schemes can make it hard for other people to picture themselves in your home.
2. Make a plan. Come up with a schedule of the work you want to have done. Don’t forget that de-cluttering your personal items, landscaping, and thorough cleaning are essential steps in the process, in addition to any painting, refinishing, and remodeling.
3. Schedule the work. It is good to hire your contractor as soon as possible, so that you can ensure your project fits amongst their busy spring schedule.
In April:
1. De – clutter. Take the time to get all of your personal objects organized and managed so that it is convenient to work in your home, and so that when the time comes you can present a decluttered open house. Clutter is one of the biggest deterrents to a home being successfully sold.
2. Get all intensive work done. Anything that involves reframing, replacing fixtures, plumbing, drywall replacement, etc., should begin in April.
In May:
1. Get the repainting done. You want to get it done before any furniture is put back or fixtures returned to their original locations, if you have had them moved for any reason.
2. Tend to your landscaping. Landscaping, as well as exterior painting, greatly enhances curb appeal. Nw is the time to make sure that your landscaping makes your home shine! Ask your realtor for simple tips that make a huge difference.
3. Decoration! Once the paint dries, it is time to focus on gently decorating your interior and exterior to make it universally appealing. Remember, you are trying to appeal to the widest collection of people, not specifically to yourself.
In June:
Hit the market! Now you’re ready!
Getting Ready For Spring: Top Five Things To Do
Envision a creative exterior for spring. (photo by Graur Codrin)
Spring is just around the corner, and you could not be more ready. You know that the day is approaching (if it hasn’t already come) when you will walk out your door and be greeted by the sight of little purple crocuses peeking up from under the frost. When that day comes, it is time to contemplate opening your doors and getting ready for the great cleaning and airing out that always comes with the warming of the seasons. It is also the time to start thinking seriously about redecorating, since with the onset of the warm weather the procedures of redecorating will become more convenient. It is good to plan your projects early, since you won’t be alone in bringing your focus toward home improvement – as an experienced painting and refinishing contractor in the Washington, DC area, take it from us that spring is a popular season for redecorating. Here are five tips for how you can get ready for the great spring rush on redecorating.
1. Plan your project early. Late February is the perfect time to get a contract, because you get your project in just before the Spring rush. If you start early in picking your colors and deciding what kind of paint you want, then you can make the execution of your project maximally efficient.
2. Get rid of clutter in the areas that you want to improve. If you have been putting off a trip to the dump or recycling facility, now is the time to make that happen. A cluttered home is hard to work with, both in terms of visioning what you might want for the space, and in terms of actually executing any work you might want to get done. This goes for exterior projects as well; while it may be too cold to paint for another few weeks, if you get rid of your unwanted junk now, you can focus on the next steps of the project the second the weather allows.
3. Do a self-inspection. Go through your home, interior and exterior, and search for signs of any paint or other coating failure. Cracked and peeling paint, mold and mildew, water damage, chalking or impurity leaching, damage to the substrate; make a full list of all the blows your home has taken over the course of the difficult winter, so that you have a comprehensive picture of the work you want done when it come stime to engage a contractor.
4. Envision a Creative Exterior. Spring is an inspiring time for decoration, since the natural world is becoming more full of light and colors. Especially for exterior projects, it can be fun to plan landscaping and exterior redecorating projects so that they will come together to create an enchanting outdoor environment right around late April/early May, when you start to really start yearning for an outdoor cookout. Just keep in mind that your outdoor landscaping will be more vulnerable while your exterior is being worked on, so you might want to consider planting after painting.
5. Watch the weather. While Spring is a warmer time of year than winter, it can also be a wetter time of year. Water damage can affect both interiors and exteriors, as well as hampering the progress of exterior projects. Scheduling your remodeling project early, before the rains set in in earnest, can be a good way to stop potential damage in its tracks – and it can also ensure that your work gets done during what can be an extremely volatile season.
Where Can I Buy Paint?
Get to know paint quality. Then decide what suits your needs. (photo by Simon Howden)
Tips for purchasing paint and painting supplies from a Washington, DC/Northern Virginia area Contracting Company
Navigating the coatings industry (“coating” = paint, stain, sealant, wallpaper, etc) can be a little overwhelming for the beginner. This is mostly because what seems like a simple product to the uninformed consumer (aka, paint), is actually an intricately engineered concoction, and the variety of different mixtures on the market is actually pretty wide. What kind of store you go to determines what kinds of products you will be offered, and what kind of product you select will go a long way toward determining the quality of your final paint job.
Paint can typically be purchased either from a general home improvement store, like Home Depot, or from a specialized paint store, like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore. While they have obvious overlap, these two types of store have different primary goals, which translates to a different selection of paint products.
The purpose of a store like Home Depot is to provide a one-stop-shop for homeowners who want to do home improvement projects themselves. Typically speaking, do-it-yourselfers have a lower budget, less expertise, and less equipment than professional contractors. With this target audience in mind, generalized home improvement stores tend to provide cheap to medium-luxury brands of paint, a comprehensive collection of equipment, and simpler, more straightforward tools. Most signature brands of paint that are sold in specialty paint stores are not offered in general home improvement stores, because they are proprietary. So stores like Home Depot carry the more generic, widely distributed brands of paint. While these brands of paint will do the job, they do not have the extra care taken into the engineering that you will find at a specialty store. They will also likely not cost as much.
The purpose of a specialty paint store is to sell paint, period. Paint stores sell specific brands, which have been engineered to excel in various arenas. High durability or opacity, waterproofing or flameproofing, mildew-resistance, low-VOC content, bold color retention, high clean ability, and custom finishes are all examples of the special purposes for which designer paints can be engineered. Paint stores also sometimes sell a type of paint known as “contractor grade”. Contractor grade paint, ironically enough, is actually extremely low – quality, intended for covering large areas in new construction. Since specialty paint stores sell to contractors as well as homeowners (and that includes general contractors working with new construction as well as high-craftsmanship refinishing contractors like Blue Door Painters), the types of paint offered are focused on very specific goals, from the cheap new-construction paints to the extremely reliable designer paints that a refinishing contractor can stake his reputation on.
So when you are shopping for paint, you should consider the level of quality you are looking for, as well as your budget and whether you are going to have help in the execution. Understanding what kind of paint is sold where is a solid first step toward navigating the complicated world of paint products.
Challenges and Benefits of Remodeling in the Winter
There are some benefits to remodeling in the winter. (photo by Simon Howden)
There are many reasons not to remodel in the winter. The harsher the elements, the more environmental challenges are posed to an exterior job. Exposure to extreme winter elements makes new coatings and other work so vulnerable to failure that most contractors (Blue Door Painters included) postpone exterior projects until mid-March, when temperatures become more stable. Interior projects, though protected from the elements by climate control, require you to give up some of your indoor space – and in the winter, when the outdoors isn’t a nice place to be, losing access to a portion of your interior space can be extra stressful. Added risk, added inconvenience: the challenges of remodeling in the winter provide such a clear and obvious deterrent that it is no surprise that very few people take on a remodeling project during this season.
So what are the benefits? In a nutshell, the benefit is that very few people take on a remodeling project during this season.
What this means for your project, is that you will get more attention – and more opportunity for savings – from everyone involved, all along the supply chain. The stores selling supplies will be doing less business, and may be running slow seasonal sales. The contractor working on your project will undoubtedly be running fewer jobs, and will be available to focus only on you, therefore ensuring that you get maximal attention. For remodeling projects that involve complex supplies, there is likely to be a much shorter wait time to order the necessary parts in the winter versus in the other three seasons (when everyone else is remodeling). Finally, many contractors, Blue Door Painters included, offer special discount incentives for customers willing to offer work during the slow season.
In addition to saving money and benefiting from the special care that comes from being the center of attention, you will have your space all ready to enjoy when the warm weather finally hits. While it is certainly a trade-off, since you have to spend some time being less comfortable indoors during the winter (when you can’t go anywhere else), when the warm weather hits and you want to start focusing on other things (like throwing barbecues and going camping), you won’t have your remodeling project hanging over your shoulder anymore. It will be all over and done with – with extra care and at a fraction of the cost – for you and your guests to enjoy. Which is enough of a reason to balance all the downsides.
