has anyone gotten it done lately? what kind of a price am i looking at?


we have high ceilings and no way am i getting up there, so painting by myself is out.

 

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I do 90% of my painting myself so can't help here, but I am definitely interested in hearing what a vaulted ceiling area would cost... I have an area on my list of things to do that I'll never be able to paint myself!

 

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Here is a list of things to find out from the contractor when you call or they come by (most places will stop by and give you an estimate for free)


How do they dispose of the leftover paint, paint containers etc. In some towns you just cannot throw paint cans in your reg garbage they have to be taken to special site.


License and bonding very important in case paint gets spilled on you carpet etc


How much furniture moving do they do? some places absolutely will not even move a chair to paint behind it.


do they include drop cloths for your furniture or do you need to get your own


Some things you can do to cut costs:


Do all the prep work yourself this entails removing all the switch plates, light covers, (as you are removing the covers tape the screws to the back of them so they dont get lost.)


thats all I can think of now if I think of anything else I will add it later.


taping can be a royal pain I would let them do this unless you are very patient lol


Sweep down all the walls to remove dust cob webs.


Last but not least Make sure you get at least a pint of paint in every color they used for touch ups!

 

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ooo good hints


and i will let you know the cost of the ceiling

IM NOT GOING UP THERE! lol

 

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ooo almost forgot a very important tip get a small tub of spackle and go around and patch holes yourself.


Forget using the spackle knife just use your finger. Carry with you a small pail of water and a sponge. After you dab the mud into each hole use your sponge which has been dampened and wrung out really well to smooth over the patch and wipe off any access. If its a big hole then only do like half let it dry for about 24 hours and then re-apply the spackle/mud. You may have to redo a few of the others as well as the spackle shrinks as it dries. Keep rinsing the sponge as needed.

 

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We had our living room (HIGH--16'--ceilings all around), family room, kitchen (minimal) and stairway retextured & painted a year ago. It cost us $2000-2500. But keep in mind, there was retexturing done; your house won't require that. Our painter was VERY thorough in his prepwork, making sure there was NO CHANCE paint could land where it shouldn't. Of course, we made it easy on him in the LR: we told him we were replacing the carpet right after he was through painting.

 

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ooooo that isnt bad at all. i was fearing 5k at least!

 

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We need to paint our house too...I don't know wtf the builders were thinking but the standard paint they use for all the houses is NON WASHABLE. And it picks up dirt like you wouldn't believe. And I swear they only applied one coat of paint and said "good enough".


First I'm going to fight with the warranty people and threaten to give the company a bad rating on the national homebuilder's survey (it's issued by a national group, not the builders, and the builders like to get good scores on it) if they don't come repaint. With something I can clean!


If that doesn't work...well, there is one area of our house, the entryway and front hallway, that is 2 stories high...goes all the way to the second floor ceiling. I can't even change the light bulbs in the chandelier up there, the 20' ladder we have doesn't go up that high, so no way I'd be able to paint it. If they builders won't come out and fix it, then I'm going to put trim up (like chair rail molding or crown molding, that type of thing) about one story high all around, and I'll paint from there down. It's not the up above that gets dirty anyways!

 

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yeah, they have that kind here also. builder has his own named paint. 1 coat, flat, flat, flatter than a pancake flat paint. wash off anything and you wash off the paint.


that sounds like a great idea tho. unfortunantly, they gave us a neutral brown...like a soggy washed out brown mud color. tannish like. wouldnt go w/ ANYTHING/.


ick

 

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Great tips, Ayla. Sounds like you have a lot of experience at this sort of thing.

 

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