What to expect on the first day of your painting job

The first day of your painting project is coming up and by now hopefully, you have expressed all of your expectations and have turned in your color selections. So now what?

A good company will call and confirm the start of the job a few days beforehand and introduce either your foreman or project manager at this time, he would be your point of contact throughout the process, one thing this person hates is clients calling the office when he or she can easily solve almost any problem on site and much  faster.

On the day of the job you should have your breakables moved out of the rooms being painted, furniture put into the middle of the room and a nice breakfast ready for the painters (ok just kidding on the breakfast)

Your crew or painter will arrive and the person in charge (your foreman) will walk through the entire project with you and go over each color and all of your expectations based off of the scope of work. If there are any issues this is a great time to bring them up and resolve any unmet expectations after the job is complete.

They will go over job sequencing and scheduling to let you know how they will manage your job when certain rooms will be done and if they see any issues

As this is going on the rest of the crew is setting up a shop area somewhere you said would be a good spot such as the basement or garage, you should also let them know where they can clean their tools and what bathroom facilities to use.

Once your walk-through is complete your general spackling will begin and masking off of baseboards, plastic covering the furniture and drop clothes placed on the floor.

Now the expert work will begin, our painters are highly skilled and trained and do not need other supervision on the site, remember you hired professional, you must let them work. They may do things you're not accustomed to, remember just because you read it online doesn't make it true or the professional way to do things. Nothing is worse the client disrupting the painters, it distracts them, cause ill will and may make them rush your project.

A few days before the project is over the foreman will walk it with you, address any concerns at this time, hand you, our invoice and let you know payment is due on the completion day.

Once payment is made we will ask for any referrals, reviews and take some pictures of our work. No is a great time for a video review of our work and helps tremendously with our future work

A great few weeks

We have had a great few weeks at Amato Painting in many ways.

We won Lehigh Valley Style Best Painting and Wallpaper services 2017 for the 4th Year in a row

Lehigh Valley What's Happening Best Painting Company for the second year in a row and third overall time plus we are a Hall Of Fame Member
We were honored to receive the PDCA Bronze Safety Achievement Award which is a National Award and one we were thrilled to get.

I personally have been all over the place, in magazines, on other websites, have an article coming out in a National painting trade magazine soon, been invited on blogs and just for doing what I love to do which is painting, business,
and teaching others

Not to mention the painters and sales team have been killing it recently and were booked pretty solid

None of this would be possible without the people who help me , from the painters who get up every day and go to jobs they may not like or deal with very difficult customers or tough weather such as rain, extreme heat and cold. Jeremiah has been here from day one and is the hardest working person and always up for a challenge to the office staff who deals with my ever changing ways, we worked hard to bring in great people in the office and in the field who can manage themselves and it has paid off on my end simple by me not being involved in every day to day task.

Tanya kills it with our commercial jobs and if you don't pay your bill you will answer to her, she is who I lean on every day and were a great team together!! She does not go unnoticed by me

Kyle came in and took a huge load off of me personally by managing the painters, he is learning while in the fire with some of the craziness each day but has handled it very well and always asks to learn new things

Marisa Came in when we needed support in the office, with a busy family life she helps as much as she can and has certainly helped with the enormous amount of paperwork thatis required for some of our jobs.

Adair in the shop has brought some structure to the ordering of paint, supplies and all whiel he goes to college at night (That is a work ethic!)

Rich our commercial estimator is so busy he asks for mercy sometimes but has been a great resource and is invaluable to us

But on my end the people who have inspired me to keep me going, some may not even know it
Rian Carr was with us a short while but you can sense his passion for things and that is inspiring to me, Other painting companies most certainly inspire me Nolan Painting and Brian and Kevin helped me so much get to where we're at today, Steve Burnett and Tom Reber, I am not a client of either but each day I learn something new
There are so many more, Anthony from Sherwin Williams, Eric Miller Benjamin Moore, All the guys from Gleco Paint and the Benjamin Moore reps, Pipeline Deals, Knowify, Pep Cloud Estimating

Too many to mention but the point is everyone who you come across each day may insire you in some way to do great things never have your blinders on.

What makes for a great painting estimate

I go on about 10 estimates a week in person and not counting the others we do from blueprints in the office so I have seen it all from potential clients who could care less what I have to say other than the price to ones who I can talk to forever.

Somedays the bad ones make it a very long day but the others who turn out to be great make up for the bad generally

So what makes a great estimate on my end?
Communication is the big one here for me, if a potential client does not open up about their project or we do not connect in some way while I am there it makes for a very difficult estimate, I never find out their key needs nor did they share them with me which makes it a complete guess once we start the job and is ripe for problems and expectations not met.

Be on site, I know that sounds simple but the person making the decision should be on site, you have to connect or feel comfortable with who you hire and not make your decisions solely off of the price. We ask a lot of questions before we show up on an estimate and if the decision is based solely on price for a residential project we will refer these jobs out.

We are entering into a relationship once an estimate is given and you select us to do your work, we will be interacting over the course of your project and we like to work for great people and are selective in who we work for just as much as you are when selecting your contractor.

Know what you want and express it at the estimate, not after the job starts. At that point you should let the painters do what they are trained and experienced to do, paint. Nothing is worse than a homeowner looking over their shoulders or pulling gout a light to shine on the wall which is a big no-no. Know what you want, express it to the estimator and let them deliver it.