Residential Real EstateOne Homeowner"s "Brush" With Home Improvement
It"s time. Time to throw me in with every other consumer out there who must
interview, get bids from, and hire a painter. Very soon, my husband and I
will be pouring some re-modeling money into our ten year-old production home.
And, among the other facelifts it is beginning to need, it definitely needs
interior paint. No, I don"t want to get off on a rant here, but my spouse and
I are thoroughly convinced that, although some people in the trades may be
very good at what they do, many are lousy business people. Are you beginning
to get the drift that this has not been a pleasant experience so far? Read on
if you like true-life stories.
Mind you, this may not be the first time we"ve had some painting done to a
home we"ve owned, but this is definitely the first time we"ve planned and
saved and decided to re-paint the entire interior, closets and all. Ideas
we"ve got. After having sold new homes for over a decade, my working
conditions screamed of fresh paint, clever window coverings and
decorator-perfect color schemes in true model home fashion, so it was not
difficult to have definite ideas on how I would someday re-paint the inside
of my less-than model-perfect home.
We had referrals to painters from friends, had several neighbors in the
business, and were privy to some painters who regularly had painted for some
of the builders I had sold homes for during those years. We decided to start
with the neighbor. With a full-page display ad in our little suburban town"s
diminutive telephone book and recommendations from several other neighbors,
we gave him a call. And then we waited. Next day, no call back. Several
days later, still no call back. Too busy or gone on vacation? About eight
days from the initial phone call, I found a message on the answering machine
at last. Sure, he would be happy to come over and give us a bid.
So I return that call. And I wait again. After another week we finally
hooked up and set a time for him to come over. (Mind you, he lives two blocks
away) I was not even thinking of setting up other bid appointments at the
time, however, because this guy came so highly recommended. At last we meet
face-to-face. He is a friendly person, with good advice and interesting
recommendations. He tells us that everyone down at the blankety-blank paint
store knows him; just mention his name. No problem on the various painting
plans we have devised, he says. So we offered him some pre-selected paint
chips from the blankety-blank store and he shakes our hands, saying he will
be back with the paint samples to throw up on a token wall. He gives us a bid
verbally and says he"ll drop a written one off soon.
Weeks go by and we have not had a visit, seen a bid or received a phone call.
We consider getting more bids. No, we figure, let"s just give him a call
and remind him of our existence. So we do, and another week goes by until we
have an apologetic phone message from him, saying he"ll drop the bid off in a
few days, and then come over with the samples.
The evening he is to show up at 5 p.m. with the samples, I have reminded my
other half to leave work early to be on hand for the occasion, so we can
corral our neighbor-painter and get some serious stuff arranged. The painter
shows up at my front door with little paint cans surrounding him and asks if
I have a paint brush, a rather unusual question from a professional painter.
I invite him in, and while he removes his paint-spattered shoes, I head out
to the garage to see if I saved any paintbrushes from my last scourge of
garage junk. Realizing the search was in vain, I informed him that we were
out of luck. He proceeded to tell me that his wife was coming down with the
flu and he had to get home, but he would check his truck one more time for a
brush. Miraculously a brush appears. He covers a small area of the floor
with plastic and then strokes some paint colors onto our entry wall.
Thankfully, my husband arrives before he is ready to leave, and we decide
that the colors we chose were too dark. We pledge to go to the
blankety-blank paint store and get some different samples and experiment a
bit. And before we know it he is gone. No arrangements have been made, no
dates set, and no bid passes our hands.
To abridge this story, I will cut to the chase. The blankety-blank paint
store says they haven"t had the pleasure of dealing with this painter in
several years, seven phone calls later, we still we were receiving no
response from him, and we finally left a "see ya" message on his useless
answering machine. But I ask you; is this any way to do business?
We were convinced this must be an anomaly, so we feverishly thumbed through
the phonebook for painters no one had recommended to see if our luck would be
better. The first one I called said he"d drop by the next day, and at the
appointed time he called to ask how large my house was, and gave me a
pre-emptive bid by phone. He then smugly told me that all the bids were
probably going to be in that ballpark, so when I was finished doing the
research, to call him back. Sure, no problem.
Several others no-showed. And another showed up, wrote out a bid after
taking a tour of my home, after which I asked him several questions as he was
leaving. They ran along the lines of "who moves the furniture?", "does this
include the closets?" and several more not-out-of-the-ordinary queries. Not
one of these "extras" was included in his bid. I politely said thank you and
good-bye.
Finally, a true businessman enters the scene. My husband not only finds his
ad in the phonebook; he also looks the company up on the Internet and taps
out some in cyber-inquiries. The man calls us within a day, sets up an
appointment to meet, and arrives on time. As he introduces himself, we
notice he is carrying a briefcase and a clipboard. After taking his tour he
asks if he can "set-up" at our kitchen table and he would give us our bid.
With a flourish, he whips out a lap-top computer and printer, while he hands
us a thick, categorized binder full of photos, insurance papers, and lists of
satisfied customers for us to browse through while he makes his computations.
Are we impressed?
My unbelieving spouse then asks, "Do you personally paint our house with your
crew?" He laughs, and says no, he is a former software engineer; you
wouldn"t want him painting your house . . . He has several professional
painting crews that he oversees, and he would be on hand for the job. We
thumbed through beautiful pictures of fancy paint jobs, looked at his
insurance certifications and licenses, and were convinced that we could now
stop our search. And we hadn"t even seen his bid!
Are we unusual, or is it common for homeowners to hesitate to fill the
pockets of so-called business owners with money, when we feel we are begging
to get bids? Are we just too anal for most home-improvement contractors, or
is customer service not a buzzword in their industry? I am sure that there
are many others out there like the business owner we hired for the job, but
our experience now tells us that they are not easy to find.
Something tells us our journey in hiring a contractor is not all that
unusual. We are just busy business people ourselves, and would rather spend
the extra (hard-earned) money on hiring another professional to do what they
do best, rather than forever look at wavy paint lines and see the old color
show through our personal paint job while curse words fill the air. With
every experience comes a lesson, however. We were reminded of how important
accountability and professionalism are in any business, and we resolved to
not permit ourselves to slack off in that department any time soon.
And, in the interim, (dad-gum-it) we are finally going to have a freshly
painted home.