Focus on the Exterior

An increasing intolerance for seeing the chewed up trim on the exterior of my house and the merlot colored door drove me to hire house painters in August to paint the wood work on the exterior of my house and the door.  In the course of the project, I learned that two of my window sills were thoroughly rotted and needed to be refashioned.

For paint colors, I chose from the Benjamin Moore Williamsburg Collection - Harwood Putty for the trim and Randolph Grey for the door.

I was reasonably happy with the end result - particularly the door.  The people who did the actual painting were friendly and sweet.  However, I did not have a good experience with the owner of the company, and it became clear that the price was nearly 3 times what it should have been, given the scope of work they actually did.

What I requested was that they strip off the layers of old paint first and then reprime and repaint.  The cost they quoted me made sense for that level of work.  What they actually did was just cursory scraping (with no paint stripper applied) and then reprimed and painted.  When I complained, I wasn't given a satisfactory explanation and mostly condescension about how much work it is to strip many layers of paint.  (My response - "I know.  I've done it myself, and the estimate you gave me was commensurate with that level of effort.").

In the end, they gave me a price break on the second window sill repair, and he knew I was not happy overall.  I can't recommend them based on my experience, but I am happy with the improved look of the exterior of my home.

Here are some pictures:  Pictures of Newly Painted House

Shortly after the painting was finished, I was playing with the animals on the 4th floor and noticed a very nasty leak in the corner.  That resulted in a call to the roofers - Bill Henkel Contracting - to come take a look and the information that I would need the entire front of my roof replaced. :-(  This wasn't a huge surprise.  In my home inspection, I learned that the roof had max 3-5 years of life left.  However, I wasn't too thrilled that the demise of the roof happened right after a large expenditure on the painting project.

I will say, though, that my experience working with Bill and his team was amazing.  I've already reached out to them to see what their scope of contracting jobs covers, since I have a few other projects that I'd like to get done next year, and I'd be happy to work with them again.

The primary part of the roof replacement is complete as of yesterday.  Here are some pictures that Bill sent me:  Pictures of Completed Roof Work

They will also be installing a sky light above my 3rd floor bath tub, and that work should be completed next week!

I'm very excited to see these improvements materialize. :)