BC_Painter

I am on a commercial project where I am working directly for the owners of a building, while most of the construction project is being handles by the GC

I had to Dryfall the ceilings and piping, and cover all the windows, finished cabinetry and wait for the drywall to be finished, since the they started before I was able to get in ( lack of heat in the building = frozen paint )

I primed the walls before dryfalling, not wanting to get the overspray on the unprimed drywall.

Now the ceiling bars were CAKED in dirt, from laying in the mud during construction, it didn't take a lot to knock some of it off. I tried to find the best way to clean all of this, and the ONLY thing that worked was a dustbrush. A week later I was ready to spray.

After finishing the dryfall I noticed that other workers had slowly stopped showing up to my jobsite, drywall came to a halt, plumbers started leaving halfway through the day. The General contractor joked that I seemed to be the only one that cares about this jobsite.

We are on to walls now, and cutting in the walls around all of the framing pieces at the top is a huge pain in the butt. We could probably get away with only cutting the top once, you'd have to have a decent eye to see it, and it's 14 feet high. We still are doing a second cut because 1) it's the right way to do it, and 2) Some people may notice and 3) I'll know.

Once I started doing the second very annoying high cut the GC approached me, asked me a few questions, and then told me he's seen how thorough we are, and know that half the guys that went in there would have skipped half of the steps that I have taken ( scary thought, a lot of hacks out there )

Looks like we'll be painting his next house he's working on

HeatherP

"We could probably get away with only cutting the top once, you'd have to have a decent eye to see it, and it's 14 feet high. We still are doing a second cut because 1) it's the right way to do it, and 2) Some people may notice and 3) I'll know."

That's exactly the way I work Dustin! I paint for the next painter to come in and say Wow that's a great paint job as much as I do for the homeowner!
(Assuming though that I would get the next paint job though!)

wje

The way I look at it is you can't gaurentee you will be the next painter hired to repaint your work. Why give the next painter a reason to slam your work? It seems the best way to make yourself look better is to slam someboy elses work so if you do a perfect job everytime there will be nothing to slam.

Good on yea for being thorough and its awsome you may land a few more jobs out of it.! Get some pics up when its all done

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BESMAN

^^ yes, i love that you just said "good on Ya"

it pays to go the extra mile. a job i was doing this week is a good example..i painted an accent on this one bit of wall..it was pretty much finished but i just didn't feel comfortable with some of the unevenness of the wall...so i explained to the homeowner that i was going to skim it again and repaint it. I told her it may take a little extra time, but no charge and we would both be happier for the little extra time it was going to take to finish. ...So now i am going back to the house monday to finish up....meaning I am not even done with her job yet...yesterday i received two phone calls from friends of hers that heard such good things that they would like estimates done this weekend.....so, a few extra minutes of work may now turn into a few weeks of more work..very much worth the time spent.

Dannyj

Congrats Dustin! This is why i like this place everyone seems to be very proud of what they do.

Rcon

That's what I like to hear BC!! Right on

mistcoat

Same as

My old Dad used to say ''if you can see it, they can see it.''
Always do the right thing. If you're charging for two coats, give it two coats.

A fair point from wje too

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BC_Painter

I'll try to get pictures once I'm done the place, and maybe a few more after they tile and get in cabinetry.

I'll have to go back in a month once they get the drywallers to finish downstairs, the addition, front entry etc.
Hopefully by then some more progress will have the place looking ready for business!

BC_Painter

You know I've been told time and time again the exact OPPOSITE

"You've been doing this for years, have a great attention to detail and are probably the ONLY person who would ever notice. Just skip it get paid and move on"

This was what I got from a few people when I was in Calgary and we were all on piecerate. I've always hated the piecerate system, it breeds hacks that get it "good enough" to get paid rather than the best you can do.

I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, educating homeowners,(or business owners G.C.'s, I just tend to mostly work for homeowners) and hope that it's enough to stand out a bit from the crowd, and so far it seems to be working out

P.S. wow, senior member already?

mistcoat

The firm I used to sub to was the same. A lot of the blokes used to get piece work (we actually call it price work in the UK though). They'd go into newbuilds and crash them out in double quick time, then us on Daywork would come in a couple of weeks later to put their work right. The boss still made a killing allowing them to crash it out giving us a day to put the work right.


Quite right too.

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BrushJockey

This is the way to do it, IMO. But doesn't fit with this famous thread:
Craftsmanship is not what makes a business succesful

...hmm

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You know, like Prince did..

mistcoat

I love that post by Mr Fenner. I read that quite often as it goes

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straight_lines

Here is to hoping that he can get you for the price of the other guys who wouldn't have done as good a job as you did.

BC_Painter

I guess we will see won't we