Painting of the Second Floor

This was a lovely house with some very nice people and skittish cats.  The house was small and perfect for this couple, but not big enough for us to repair the entire thing at one time.  So, we took over their second floor and the homeowners slept in their living room. 

Again, I forgot my camera, so these are iPhone pictures.  I hope they come across well here.

The first set is the bathroom.  It was basically a cleaning of the walls.  We painted the ceiling, walls, trim, door, and shelving all the same color.

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

 The shelving was painted in a very odd, almost incomplete fashion.  We made everything uniform.

Shelving Before

Shelving After

We changed their bedroom from yellow to a rich blue while repairing some drywall issues.

Bedroom 1 Before

 

Bedroom 1 After

The ceiling and the trim in the second bedroom was faux painted with a sponge.  There was also a significant amount of repair to do.  We made all of the repairs, changed the ceiling and trim to white, and changed the walls from red to yellow.  The photo does not do justice to the work that we did, but I think you can see the difference.

Bedroom 2 Before

Bedroom 2 After

The closet in the second bedroom had some water damage and did not even have a door.  There was also more faux painting there.  So, we cleaned it all up and added bi-fold doors.

Bedroom 2 Closet Before

Bedroom 2 Closet After

Excellence

I got notice today that Barry Bush Home Improvements won the Angie's List 2013 Super Service Award for drywall and interior painting.  This marks the 6th year in a row for awards in these  categories.  Only the top 5% of companies in the Philadelphia area get this award.

The Painting of an Entire House #8

I haven't been updating this blog lately.  It's not that we have not been working.  I've actually been working very hard and have been behind schedule all summer.  Many of the jobs we've done are not interesting enough to show here or they do not have a story.  I don't think posting color changes here will really be interesting. I also need to remember my camera more often.

This was my first collaboration with Greensaw Building and Design.  They had the contact to strip the kitchen to the brick and act as the general contractor for the rehab of this house.  They had the electricity rewired, floors refinished, and hired me and my team to repair and paint the interior of the house.

After the electricians did their thing, the ceilings and walls were in really bad shape.  The colors of the rooms were rather drab and dirty, as well.  Here are pictures of the house when we first found it compared to our fine work.

The living room had a large channel torn out by the electricians.  We installed new 1/4" drywall over the entire thing and painted the room.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

On the other side of the living room, they had some since built-in bookshelves.  We did some repairs and gave it some life.

Living Room Bookshelves Before

Bookshelves after

I have photos of 2 of the 3 bedrooms.  They were rather pale, dirty, and littered with holes made by the electricians.  We repaired and painted everything.

Following are the before and after pictures of the hallway. 

Finally, here are the pictures of the custom kitchen.  We installed the drywall to the studs, repaired and painted the rest of the house while Greensaw built it, and then we painted it when they were done.  Sorry, I neglected to take pictures of the empty room before we installed the drywall.

This project was my first of (hopefully) many collaborations with Greensaw Design and Build.  They are a great group of designers and project managers.  I enjoyed working with them on this project, and we did a great job on this house. 

Wallpaper Removal #3 with A Cleaning #5

 This is the 3rd time I was called to work in this house.  The last one was A Cleaning #2.  Every time we work in this house, I feel that we bring it back to good health.  The wallpaper was put up very poorly and the room were in general bad condition.  I found out this time that the homeowners are getting ready to sell the house and are slowly fixing it up.  We are doing our part to help them.

I didn't take many pictures and these are the best that I can show.  The existing wallpaper in the dining room and living room were falling off and everything looked gloomy.  We stripped the wallpaper, repaired the old plaster walls, primed and painted the walls, painted the ceilings, and gave the trim a bath of fresh paint.

Dining Room before

Dining Room after

Living Room and Stairwell before

Living Room and Stairwell after

A Crowning Example of What We Can Do

The couple that bought this condo unit rented the unit just below it.  I met them in their rented apartment and saw a circus of colors in every room.  The trim was painted with 3 colors which was different in every room.  It was an interesting concept that was applied too heavily.  So, when they bought the unit upstairs from them, they asked me to do something similar.  Their idea was much simpler and coordinated.  I could tell more of a story here, but the pictures speak for themselves.

Following are 3 photos of the foyer:

Foyer Before 1

Foyer After 1

Foyer Before 2 (with homeowner's color test samples)

Foyer After 2

Foyer After 3

 

Foyer Before 3

Following is 1 photo of the dining room as we found it and 3 photos of what we did to it:

The living room was also painted with this kind of detail.  I only have one before and after picture, but it is the most impressive of the room:

 The rest of the condo was simply repaired and painted.  I have those photos here, too:

Breakfast Room Before

Breakfast Room After

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

Bedroom Before (with homeowner's color sample)

Bedroom After

This job is a crowning example of what my crew and I can do.  The pictures don't truly do justice to what was done, but this was the most difficult trim job that we have ever done.  The homeowners are extremely pleased with the work and thanked us repeatedly.

The Painting of One Room

This is the 4th time these people called me to work for them over the past 5 years.  They simply wanted to change their office into a nursery.  The issues were the trim color, wall color (it's a girl), and the old repair on the ceiling and wall.  It was a rather straightforward job.  Take a look at the difference.

Before

After

Don't Hate Me

I will paint your living room neon green and pink if you want.  You have to live there, and the choice is ultimately yours.  I have found over the years that color is a personal preference, and it is none of my business how you want to live.  However, if you want my opinion, I will be happy to share it with you and steer you towards better options.  The artists that work for me may be able to work with you, too.  In the end, I cannot take responsibility for the work that you choose to be done.  That brings me to this most recent job, which contains a bit of controversy. 

This 100+ year old house was filled with Victorian woodwork that has been preserved over the years.  The problem was the dining room.  Someone stained the 36" high wainscot, window woodwork, door frames, and overhead beams with a terribly dark stain.  There was limited natural light in the room, so it became a dark, cavernous, foreboding, and uninviting room.  To make things worse, the ceiling and walls has a dull yellow hue.  Here are some images of what it looked like.

After taping off the floor, windows, and doorways, I sprayed a Shellac based primer over all of this woodwork.  Then 3 of us spent an entire day emptying 14 tubes of caulk in every corner and between every piece of wood.  We also skim coated the panels with wood putty to fill all the cracks in the wood.  The next day, I sprayed a latex based paint before we painted the ceiling and walls.  Don't hate me for ruining this woodwork.  I gave my opinion of what should be done, but I did what I was asked to do.

The results, however, made the room much more inviting. 

The ceiling was extra white, the walls were a light grey, and all of the woodwork was white dove in a pearl finish.  The homeowners were very excited by the completed project.  It took a day longer than expected, but they can now enjoy their dinner without feeling like they are in a small Gothic space.