The Painting of an Entire House #6

I was booked up rather solid during June.  One job that would have lasted 4 days was postponed.  Fortunately, I got a call from a previous person who postponed their job.  I gladly took the work so my crew would stay busy during this time.  Little did I realize the magnitude of what I did.  I, essentially, overbooked my schedule for 2.5 weeks of June. 

This house was a huge undertaking.  It was poorly rehabbed during the early housing boom of the late 90's in Queen Village.  Plus there was other water damage from the hurricane Irene of last year.  We repaired all of the nail pops, cracked walls, water damage, poorly spackled seams, installed new 1/4 round along the baseboards, and painted every surface of this 4 story home.

The 1st floor bathroom had its drywall removed by another team prior to my arrival.  Below is one angle of how I found it.

 Then, we finished it

The 2nd floor living room had cracks, nail pops, and bad seams everywhere. 

 You may not be able to tell the difference from this photo, but it is a much nicer room now

There was some major damage in the ceiling of their office

 Much nicer

 I am including the two photos below to show the details of the changes from red and cream...

 ...to grey and white

In all, this was a great project that lasted over 2 weeks with a split crew.  It was extremely rewarding to repair this home and give the owners a nice place to live.  It also proved that I could handle the scheduling nightmare that I took on. 

Renovation While On Vacation

The perfect time for a pregnant woman with a 2 year old child to renovate her home is while she is on vacation.  The list of improvements we did on this house while the family was on vacation is huge.  Well, some of it was the week before they went away, but is was all done around the same time.  The only unfortunate thing is that I do not have "before" pictures of any of this work.  You'll have to take my word for it that we did some drastic cosmetic improvements.

First we tiled the space under their living room mantle

Then we built a planter for them to grow bamboo to naturally screen out their neighbors

Then we did the interior work.  We replaced their 3rd floor baseboards, painted the ceiling and walls, and painted the doors with chalkboard paint

The most important thing for this family was their front door.  They supplied a special oil paint that shines ever so well.

In all, this was a great project.  When they returned, I got an email that said, "The third floor looks great!  Thanks. We're pretty surprised that you got everything done on time.  The baseboards look great (in addition to everything else).

Rental Apartment

This is the 2nd time I was called in to clean up an apartment in this building.  A tenant moved after 3 years of living in this apartment and the unit needed some work.  The building owner updated the kitchen, and we painted the entire thing.  I like to give close to the same treatment to rentals as I do to the high end residential homes.  Here are some photos of the damage that we repaired. 

Brick wall with water damage

Repaired brick wall

Kitchen before

Kitchen after (please excuse the dust on the lens)

Damage at patio door

Repaired damage

The Painting of an Entire House #5

The color change of this project was not nearly as exciting as the previous one.  Regardless, we still completed this job with the same passion.  We painted every wall of this very large house.  My client did not want us to do the ceilings or trim, even though some of the ceilings has some need for paint.  We did, however, sand and stain all of the handrails throughout this 4 story house.  Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of the handrails, but here are some of the walls.

Master bedroom before

Master bedroom after

Guest bedroom before

Guest bedroom after

Dining room before

Dining room after

Living room before

Living room after

The Painting of an Entire House #4

In on one day at the end of May, these folks sold their previous house, bought a different one, and moved into the new one.  The next day, they handed me keys to their house so we could paint it.  It was not in bad shape and it did not need much repair beyond some cracks and nail holes.  What it needed was some life.

The new owners of this house (my customers) were a bit more lively than the previous owners and selected colors to reflect this aspect of their lives.  We turned drab tan into cheerfulness.  These photos are less about what we did and more about the colors the homeowners selected.  Only they can tell you about the speed and quality of our work.

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