Front Door

I did some painting on the 3rd floor of this house in March 2012. After we cleaned up and got ready to leave, I told the homeowner that I wanted to refinish his front door.  The sun, heat, rain, and city had beat up his beautiful front door over the years.  I don't know if it received any treatment since it was put in place over 100 years ago.  We finally got to this work last week.

We spent hours sanding the remaining varnish from the door and getting the color as even as possible.  Then, we applied 3 coats of spar varnish over the course of 3 days.

This is what the door looked like before we touched it:

Full door

Detail shot

This is after the 3 coats of varnish.  To see the real differences, you may have to enlarge the images by clicking on them.

The Painting of an Entire House #7

This was by far the largest painting job I have ever undertaken.  This was also Nakima's last job.  We painted every surface of this 3 story, 9 room plus 3 bathroom Victorian house in West Philadelphia.  The previous owners of this house moved in and did absolutely nothing to the house.  9 years later, the new owners had to take care of it.  So they brought us in to repair and paint the ceiling, walls, baseboards, trim, doors, radiators, interior of closets, bookshelves, countless spindles, and every paintable surface throughout the house.

There were some complications with the scheduling of this job.  We had scheduled a start date well in advance, but it did not go according to plan.  After completing the purchase of this house, the homeowners quickly figured out that they had to re-wire everything. This would result in a significant amount of damage to the ceilings and walls.  So, we spent the first 5 days painting the seemingly endless woodwork and radiators.  We also took care of the kitchen to give them one place of solace in the house.  Then my crew went on a planned week long vacation (separately).  During that week the electricians came in to update the wires and light fixtures. We returned for another week with the electricians still there.  Then, we had to go to a previously scheduled job for 9 days.  After 3 more days, the job was finally done.

Now for the photos...

Bedroom 1 Before

Bedroom 1 After

Bedroom 2 Before

Bedroom 2 After

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Bookshelves Before

Bookshelves After

Master Bedroom

Dining Room

Bedroom 3 with stairs in the hallway

We Covered Everything

While my website was in development I had two reasons to launch this blog.  The first was for me.  I wanted to have a record of my experiences.  The second reason is for self-promotion.  I want you, reader, to know more about what my team and I do.  I want to set myself apart from the competition and make a personal connection with you, so you will be more excited to hire us.  I get great satisfaction from writing these entries, and I have succeed in my goal of making this a personal experience for the reader.  A reader of this blog hired me because of this blog, and I was hired to do a very large job, which I will describe below.

Somewhere along the line, this c. 1920 suburban Philadelphia 3 bedroom house was not treated very well. Someone covered the plaster ceilings with drywall, then coated the ceilings and walls with a deep swirled texture.  Everything was painted a pale yellow.  Plus there were carpets throughout the house.  My client and new homeowner had a vision to bring this house back to life.  I will take you on a room by room tour of the cosmetic rehabilitation of this house.

Bedrooms 1 & 2
We skim coated the ceilings and walls of these 2 small bedrooms to eliminate the heavy swirled texture that you may be able to see in the 1st photo below.  After sanding, priming, and covering the worst areas of texture a 2nd time, we painted the ceiling, walls, trim, and doors of these rooms.

Bedroom #1 Before

Bedroom #1 After

Bedroom #2 Before

Bedroom #2 After

The master bedroom needed a lot more work.  The homeowner planned on removing the drop ceiling, so we could cover it with drywall and add some crown molding.  This revealed a small duct in the corner of the room, so we added an 8' soffit spanning the space you can see below.  We continued to brighten up the room by priming and painting all of the wood trim in the room to white.

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

To give the living room a nice finish look, we added drywall and crown molding to the ceiling.  The walls required 2 full skim coats to smooth out the walls.  The, of course, we painted the ceiling, walls, and the trim.  We also painted the wood spindles along the stairwell.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

We had the same plan for the dining room as we did for the living room.  We added drywall and crown molding to the ceiling, and skim coated the walls.  We finished it off with a couple of coats of paint.

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

This job took 9 days to complete with 5 people working every day.  This was one of the largest projects that we have ever completed.  The homeowner told us that his wife did not like the house and did not want to buy it.  He had a vision and convinced her that it was a good plan.  She came by one day towards the end of the project and got a little emotional.  She told us that she recognized what we did and could finally see herself living in this house.

The homeowner said, "I'm quite pleased overall with everything; the transformation is great.  I appreciate all the work your team did over the last two weeks."

A Sad Day

Yesterday was a sad day. I lost my rock at the end of the day.

Less than a year after I started this business, I hired a complete stranger who was a professional house painter hungry for work. She changed my life and helped me build my business to what it is today. I trusted and depended on her as she taught me how to work efficiently with high standards. She deserves credit for my success.

4 years later, it is time for Nakima Ollin to move on with her life. All things must pass, and we can do it without her. However, I will miss my clients asking how to say her name over and over again. I will miss her sense of perfection. I will miss her work ethic. I will miss her company. Everyone on the crew is better because of Nakima, and her presence will be missed.