We got a quote for painting the house and barn with the understanding that our contractor was still working and would complete painting on his work once completed. We were told the painting crew would start on June 23rd and they’d be done end of July. That did not happen…

2 guys showed up June 23rd, worked for a few hours scraping paint… didn’t show up again until July 18. Worked one day- didn’t show up again. At this point we’re definitely questioning what’s going on and in disbelief that it’ll be done by end of the month but still understanding of everything between the extreme rainstorms/flooding and high heat. 

The painter then tried to sub out the project to another contractor without letting us know and this painter wanted to do things his own way. Our contractor kicked him off the property and had words with our hired painter. Clearly we started off  on the wrong foot. 

Finally, he promises to make things right, and sent out the next crew July 28th. This still appears to be subbed out. It is not him working on our project nor does it seem to be his guys but this crew is much more efficient, hardworking, and seemingly following the quote. 

The crew started by scraping paint on all sides of the house. If anyone has had their house painted you probably know how invasive it can feel. There was not a “safe” side of the house- they worked on all sides simultaneously. Poor M was mostly working from home at the time too and endured the noisy scraping. But- knowing it wouldn’t be for long- we dealt. 

Once done, they taped the windows off and primed with an oil based primer.

Unfortunately M had been out at a meeting and came home during this process and didn’t realize/no one told him- which resulted in overspray on his car….

The guy we hired attempted to rectify the situation over the weekend without much success. We were told he’d get someone to detail it…. Apparently that meant he’d have one of the guys working use our water… gallons and gallons of it… to wash it which of course did nothing. 

We’re still patient over everything. This sucks but whatever….

The rest of this becomes even more of a jumble in memory. 

They recaulk the windows, sealing up the weepholes on our storms, which we pointed out and they said they’d be taking care of it (foreshadowing). They painted… sprayed and “backrolled” but they let it flash in between. It was fairly obvious. Windows were painted with our accent color not our window color on random windows. They painted OVER our house numbers which we had said to remove prior to painting. They only painted the front face of the window trim, not the sides (I understand now this is a controversial subject but I’m still a firm believer that the paint should wrap the wood) They didn’t seal our attic vents and therefore clogged them with paint. They damaged our newly installed, custom roof trim, and must have dropped a full paint bucket on newly finished stairs–attempted to clean it up and made things even worse. We were quoted 2 coats of primer and believe we only received 1 coat. Back doors weren’t prepped so paint started failing immediately after being painted. They broke a window on our garage, minorly, but no attempt to notify us even. Our hired painter tried to insist we were making much of this up or claiming some items were “curtesy” things they were going to do but opted not to.. What is funny, is that he wasn’t even present on site during ANY of the work and has no real way of knowing what was and what wasn’t done on our property. 

I know our list of complaints was even longer than this, and we called for a walk-thru on site with him where I grew more and more frustrated with the response. We asked him for a warranty on his work because we didn’t agree with his assessment and he said it was not something he typically did on old houses… We ultimately told him he was done with our project and that we weren’t happy about the work. Just one more nail in the coffin, as discussed, we had a TERRIBLE year of epic rains, and we got one shortly after this walk-through… Rain came into our storm windows from the top which had NEVER happened before, AND the water was unable to drain because they had sealed the caulk WHICH WE HAD POINTED OUT ALREADY. 

We fought through the rain storm trying to open the weeps so water could at least drain out and the crew was called out one last time to take care of the caulking as should have been done to begin with. 

This really was the most disheartening experience. 

In terms of actual progress made in the mean time:

T worked on sanding the front screen doors down, re-screening them, and sealing them. This was a fairly simple process but definitely required a lot of patience to remove nails and staples. It was a fun learning experience and they turned out pretty great. 

T also cleaned and refinished the exterior porch pendant light so our electrician could wrap up and get final sign off. 

Our crew put the stained glass windows back in place and out our windows back in- tacked in place, not properly rehung yet. He also finished prepping our main lower railing and installed it between columns. The porch really started to look like it was close finally. 

The hard part is, after discussing money just about every single week for months and months, it still managed to catch everyone by surprise when we had no budget remaining and had to abruptly stop work.