Whether you hire a contractor or do the work by yourself, either method of house painting in Concord entails a lot of preparatory work. Neither of them — yes, even hiring a professional house painter — has shortcuts, but all the fuss and preparation will ultimately lead to a perfectly painted home.
If you decide to hire a professional painting contractor, you should realize that you cannot just pick one out of the many available. Choosing a contractor is not at all a simple process, as there are lots of them are vying to win your job. This is something that you should not take lightly.
One of the common mistakes a homeowner makes when hiring a painting contractor is to just invite his/her shortlisted candidates to come over to your home, point to anywhere that needs to be painted and ask them for a quote.
Perhaps the homeowner did not wish to burden the contractors by providing them too many details. Or they assumed that professionals know best, so the homeowners don’t bother telling them what else should be done.
Sure, professional painting contractors provide the best solutions to whatever issues that the homeowner has — fading paint, peeling paint, surface flaws, suggestions for the right interior colors, and so much more. However, it should be also known that the level of experience varies from one contractor to another. If the homeowner doesn’t explain what they specifically want to have done in their home, the quotes they receive from the contractors and everything written in them — price, job specifications, even the scope of work — will appear inconsistent, so comparing one quote from another is almost beyond imaginable.
Example:
– Bidder #1 offers an extra coat of paint,
– Bidder #2 omits the extra coat of paint to outdo the competition
– Bidder #3 offers removal of molds and mildew
– Bidder #4 proposes removal of popcorn ceiling (if your house indeed has one)
As you can see, every job offer from bidding contractors is inconsistent with one another, making all of them almost impossible to compare. When the homeowners realize that what they exactly want is nowhere to be found in the winning proposal, they start the bidding process all over again — and that may be time-consuming.
To prevent this from happening in the first place, the homeowners should provide a clear and detailed description of the project (all aspects of it) to every bidding contractor. The description doesn’t have to be complicated — it can be written or even expressed orally, as long as it is exactly the same.
Below is an example of a homeowner’s description of the project:
Paint living room’s walls on #1 Smith Street. Paint all surfaces including the trim, door and window frames, shelves and baseboards, except the door.
- Clean the surfaces
- Fix all flaws (cracks, holes, and fissures) if you find any
- Apply one coat of primer and one coat of paint
- Walls should be painted olive green. The trims, baseboards, frames and shelves should be painted white.
- Use only high-quality paints from “ABC Paints,” latex, VOC-free.
During the bidding process, some contractors may suggest something that you didn’t put in your project description. While the suggestions may sound good and tempting, at this point you should not give in to them, no matter want. You want to be firm in sticking to your job description. After all, it’s your home, and you want it to be painted based on your own preferences. But in case that you find a certain suggestion that appeals most to you — an extra finishing coat, for instance — you should request the bidder to give you an alternate price only for that.
When taking these suggestions, the bidding contractors will be able to give you quotes that are very much consistent. That way, you will be able to compare one quote to another quote. This will help you to choose the bidder who, you think, is the most suitable candidate to do your house painting in Concord job.