Featured House
Single Story Home in North Phoenix
Project Scope
Today’s featured home is a home that is in the North Phoenix area in the Norterra HOA neighborhood. It was built in 2011. It is 1505 square feet, single story. We got a call from the homeowner in early February, primarily concerned about the fading that had begun to occur on her house. It was actually the original paint, which actually is quite a long time for what we call a new build paint job. Oftentimes, depending on the color, that will last about four to five years is all before you start having some issues on here. This has been 11 years for this homeowner, and we certainly did see some of that fading and other items going on. There was a couple other issues as well. Some garage door trim that she was concerned about as well.
New colors
The final color with the body was a Sherwin Williams color. Now, just a special note on this. We use Dunn-Edwards products exclusively and even within that manufacturing line, we use the product EVERSHIELD exclusively as well. That is their most premium paint that they use. But with that, Dunn-Edwards is able to make everybody else’s colors. Actually, all manufacturers are able to make other manufacturers’ colors. Dunn-Edwards can make Sherwin Williams colors. Sherwin Williams can make Dunn-Edwards colors and so forth. This one was actually a Sherwin Williams color. SW 6071, Popular Gray, is what it’s going to end up being. The secondary color, which is the Fascia and flashing is an SW 6075, Garret gray. Then the third color is an SW 6074, Spalding gray with the doors being an SW 2848, Roycroft Pewter. You’ll see that on front door, back door and the garage door as well.
Gray colors can be very difficult to work with.
One interesting note about the colors in the gray spectrum. They can be very difficult to work with because everybody says, “Well, I’d like something a little gray.” But because you can have red hues or a little blue or a green hue within gray, it can be very, very difficult to narrow down that color. That was one of the things that Kim, my wife, one of the owners of the company, was able to help this homeowner with, was to talk to her specifically about what she was looking for and to help narrow down the actual color that would be appropriate for her and that was also allowed within the Norterra HOA guidelines for colors there.
Proposal
We went out and did our proposal, our walk around, our estimate and sent her the proposal, which goes over all of the items in there: how we do our preparation, including what we call a pre-production inspection report. We began to pull back rocks, pressure washing, repairs on stucco and drywall. Some minor repairs on wood that we will also do in there as far as repairing garage door trim as well.
She actually chose us. A little unusual, she actually selected us about two hours after we got that. Most often, we get it the next day or sometime within a few days. Our normal lead time right now is about 90 days for painting, but we were able just through some things in the schedule to be able to get her in just into early March. It was about 30 days that we were able to get her done.
The Issues
The North Phoenix home that we were tasked with painting was in need of a paint job. Almost 11 years of the harsh summer had taken its toll, and the paint was showing signs of wear and tear.
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Overspray from the builder
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Damage to garage door weather stripping
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Cracking stucco
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Faded colors
Original colors
You can see this first picture right here is where you can see some of the fade. It’s a little hard to see, but it has almost this pinkish, a little bit of a maybe mauve color in there. The garage door, certainly, you can see some of that fade that is going on with that darker brown in there. But this is a three-color house. The body is the primary color. Fascia is a secondary color and the pop outs are a third color with doors being an additional color and sheen as well. We’re going to get started in here.
Before Painting
We’re going to get started here. You’ll see a little bit of that side wall. Again, a little bit of that pinky. This is actually not the original. It’s the original paint, but that tint is so faded over time. The actual way, the color that it looks, is a bit different.
You’ll see garage door trim. I’m going to try to blow this up down here and you can see right down there at the bottom where we have some garage door trim failure. Some of the rubber was actually starting to give way as well and erode. Plus, we were having it to be able to pull away. The homeowner opted in this case to have us replace that trim.
As we continue, you can see where you had that three-color scheme going on. Again, down at the bottom panels of that garage door you can see quite a bit of fade and just chalking. Overall, the home was still in excellent condition. It just needed a paint job. It had been quite a bit of time since it was last painted.
Here is a picture of the eaves. Very little problems with the eaves. Oftentimes, we can see excessive peeling on those, and if we do have that, we’ll use a product called Peel Bond to help the paint stick.
Picture of the back of the house. Lighting is not great on here, but you can see where you have some of the color differences as well in here.
The project also include… There are different types of walls, pony walls, equipment walls, retaining walls. This is actually an equipment wall hiding the pool equipment, which was included as well.
You’ll see this pool here and some of the equipment. These are actually photos from the initial estimate, not when we were starting the job. As we began the job actually, all of those items there, those chairs, the items, the couches, it’s a little hard to see under the little covered area there, they all get moved out and covered with plastic as well as the pavers and the pool. We want to make sure everything is protected in there.
Identifying issues before we start.
One of the things that we do note is when we start a job, we want to just advise the homeowner some of the things that we see. There was, from the original paint job, some over spray on the concrete near that stem wall. We had found that the doorbell that had been put in was a little loose, but it was operational so we assisted in getting that back in correctly. We want to as we send these notes to people to know that one of the things we don’t
wash with the pressure washer is the service disconnect is what it’s called in there. We want to steer clear of that. We do clean that, but we do that by hand. Some of the other things you’ll see, a little bit of that over spray on the window. This is a really good photo as well. Right next to that arrow, you can also see a stress fracture. Very common along windows. Those would all be included in the repair process.
One of the tough things about ceiling fans in Arizona, you can see how these blades have now drooped. I am not sure exactly what it is. I believe that it’s just over time, the material that these are made of, they lose their rigidity. We just want to point that out to them is it’s not anything that happened in the painting process, but that that fan needs to have some new fan blades put on as well. Again, you can see the colors right now in there that back door, you’ll see some photos of that once we’re done with some new color schemes on there.
One of the things that we also do is we want to check all of the outside GFCI outlets because we will in our process use… we use electric sprayers and we want to be very aware of the fact that we don’t cause any problems. Before we do anything, we want to make sure that they’re all working correctly and we include that in our report as well.
Preparing the house for paint.
Here’s an interesting thing. This is actually the inside of the garage. Many, not all, but many garages in Arizona have garage door vents. One on top, one on the bottom. I think it just helps to get less stale air in there. Maybe a little bit of just airflow coming out. The problem with that is not so much when you’re pressure washing,
you’ll get some water in there, which you don’t want to do. When you’re painting, it can actually go through those little vents. If you have a really nice brand new $80,000 Tesla sitting in there, you’ll have nice little paint flecks all over it, and we don’t want that. We actually tape the inside of the garage vents to prevent any over spray from water or paint. You can see the lower one there.
This is a photo of the new garage door trim. You can see actually on here, the gray that’s in back of that. What we do is remove the existing trim after we’ve pressure washed the garage door. Then we paint about a two or three inch strip around the garage door, let it dry appropriately, and then install the new garage door trim. Otherwise, if we don’t do it that way, some of the old color, that brown, can show through if that garage door shifts at all. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen. Then we get it all caulked in and then it gets painted.
We are going down here, showing you a little bit of DRYLOK® that is applied then to the stem wall and an example of the windows that get taped here as well.
We want to make sure everything’s covered and protected so we’re covering the driveway with plastic.
Here is one of our guys applying DRYLOK® with a small roller on that stem wall. DRYLOK® actually is primarily used in areas of the country for waterproofing basements. But what we found is that down low, even though there’s not a lot of rain in Arizona, that can actually damage that stem wall so this helps to prevent further damage from occurring.
Another quick shot of us in the back area, where you can see we’re taping off lights and fans and some of those things.
The results
Now we’re getting to some of the final colors. This is those back doors, actually painted the new color in there. That equipment wall as well. There you go. How about that? What a great shot of the backyard, really beautiful color. We also do things, fire pits, barbecues, those things as well. Good shot of the back. Another angle there.
One that we’re finishing up that front where you can see that front garage door, the new color as well. Some of the doors with the new color. Those are all done in semi-gloss paint. One is we’re beginning to finish up and we’ve got the front there with pop outs done as well.
The homeowner was very pleased. We’re grateful for them. They gave us a great five-star review on Google, and we hope the best for them and hope they enjoy their new paint job.
“We are fully satisfied with the quality of the work and price we paid.”