Looking Painted

We have lived in this house since February 1990. Although we’ve updated the interior, there hasn’t been much outside maintenance necessary. The house has aluminum siding and wooden shutters. We did replace the windows and repainted the trim about 10 years ago. However it is now time to repaint the house. A little perspective on the prospect of painting.

When we bought our first home it needed to be insulated so they drilled holes in the wooden clapboard siding and blew in the insulation. Then they plugged the holes, sealed them and slapped some paint over the top. The house looked like it has measles. We bought the house for $32,000 and when we got estimates for painting they ranged from $10,000 to $15,000! We almost had apoplexy! We ended up finding an independent contractor to do it for a mere pittance of $5,500. The house was painted and looked wonderful. Fast forward from 1984 to 2020. We decided to have this house painted. We called for an estimate from the “Student Painters”. *sigh* We waited for 3 weeks for them to come out to see the house. We called again and were given an actual appointment time for the estimate. On the appointed day we waited. They called and said that they would be by at ~1:00 pm. They came. They left. They gave us an estimate – $4,550. But that was without painting the shutters or window trim. The updated estimate was more. Sparky wanted to get a second estimate. I wanted to get the house painted.

The second company promptly sent out a young man to give us an estimate. He was professional, efficient, and pleasant. The estimate for the house is $5,091 and includes the trim, soffits and shutters. They have a 2 year guarantee and all their workers are covered under workman’s compensation. There is no danger that we’ll have to file any personal injury claims with our home owner’s insurance. They also pre-power wash the house to make sure the paint goes on smoothly and doesn’t invalidate the paint warranty. I would have thought the price would have been much more allowing for inflation. Not that I’m complaining!

Because of the rainy weather we had to wait for the painting to start. The power washing has been done with only a few casualties – there was a wasps’ nest that was demolished (small moment of panic and some shouting) and a couple of birds that had decided to go into the covered gutters for a snack that got a little soaked (they were “madder than a wet hen”).  Anyway the house is being repainted in the same colors it currently wears. The young man came out and did a neat little trick and paint matched the colors we currently have. According to his little devise, our previous butterscotch will be painted “soft fawn” with the former magma trim redone in “peppercorn”. At least we won’t have any issues with the HOA since the colors are exactly same as the original! Despite numerous delays the painting is completed. They got the front of the house done (because it faces the sun and was dry). We had to rescheduled the back and north side twice due to moisture. They worked on the trim instead and had to tape it off. I took a couple before and after photos but honestly it looks exactly the same. So much so that I wasn’t sure which was which and had to look at the time stamp to tell… so no photos.

The only things left to do are the trim around the garage door and the front bay window. We are supposed to get a new garage door so we didn’t want to paint the trim. The money pit continues to siphon cash from our pockets!