Painting Prep Work Before Painting.

Interior Paint Job Prep Work That Painting Contractors Don't Talk About. (or Charge for)

By Jcb Painting

When we get a call to come out to a potential interior painting job to look it over and give a quote we never know what we will see, or don't see.

When I arrive I meet the homeowner and we introduce ourselves and we proceed to look at the space to be painted.

Gone are the days of measuring the square footage of the room to be painted with a tape measure and writing it all down on a pad of paper. Today it is digital. I ask if I may snap pictures of the space to be painted from all angles and give the room a good look over with the old eyeballs. I look at the shape of the walls, doors, trim, ceiling and anything else that will need painting.

I look to see how much patching, sanding and other prep work that may be required to do the job professionally.

I talk with the home owner about what I will do, what their time frame is of when they would like the job to begin to make sure I can start, with out any conflicts for other scheduled jobs I have and that it fits their schedule.

When I get home I upload the images I took to give me a fresh perspective on the job that I looked at to be painted and what I remember seeing. It all comes together to help me to give a fair and honest quote. I then send the quote out to the customer, and usually, I'm awarded the paint job.

So the day arrives when I start the job.

First thing we do is move furniture. (refrigerators, stoves, beds, bureaus, dressers, end table  etc.)

Now, most people keep clean and tidy homes, but there are some area's that just don't get cleaned to often. Those area's are under the furniture and appliances. Especially the heavy stuff, like refrigerators, beds, bureaus, and dressers. You never know what it will look like under those things after moving them away from the walls so we have room to paint. It's good to have at least 5 feet between walls and furniture to work.

So we start to move the furniture.

Now the approaching music score from the shower scene in the movie "Psycho" begins to play in my head. 

We start with the bed. Usually the bed has not been moved in a while. It is extremely dusty under there with any number of other things. Like kids toys, snack foods, chips, Doritos's, Cheetos's, candy and wrappers, some chocolates. (people watch a lot of tv in bed today and they like to snack) The list goes on. Some of the things we find, I can't mention here.

Then there is the "other" furniture to move. 

Now the music score from "Jaws" is entering my head. You never know what lies below.

This is a scenario that is played out time after time. But that's OK. It's sort of like that in my home also. Perfectly normal.

That furniture is heavy and who looks under there anyways?

So what do we do? We clean. We pick up all trash, stale food etc. etc. and we then completely vacuum the area clean again.

Sometimes we clean the floor, like under the refrigerator.

This is not part of the quote, we just do it. And we don't tell the customer either so as to not embarrass anyone. Like I said before it is perfectly normal for stuff to collect under heavy furniture. It happens to all of us.

Most customers don't realize that we do this. They think we just paint. We are actually providing another service. The room is always cleaner after we exit.

Good painting contractors will do this cleaning service at no extra charge and never say anything about it.

Not all painting contractors do this. But we do.

Thanks for reading!