7 MORE Tips and Tricks on How to Get a Better Price from Your Painting Contractor

You may have read our previous popular article “7 Tips for Getting a Cheaper Quote From Your House Painting Contractor for Painting Your House”.

Well, I have something even more valuable to you as a homeowner if you’re still considering hiring a painter (hopefully me!). Here’s my newest blog as of September 2014 which offers 7 MORE tips on how to get a better price from your painting contractor.

1) Help Set the Job for Me

Interior: Move furniture to the middle of the room and try to declutter the area for us. Cover as much of your belongings as possible in plastic prior to us showing up.

Exterior: Hose off or pressure wash any surfaces to be painted. Trim any hedges or branches that may get in our way. Remove porch furniture if we are painting your porch or decks

A Home Painters Job is a clean job, no matter what. Power washing your deck makes things a lot easier for us.

2) Give Incentives to Help My Business (assuming you’re happy with the job, of course!)

Leave reviews and written testimony
Offer to provide video testimony
Take before and after pictures
Promote us with social media

Let people know how you thought we did! HomeStars is a great place to find and leave reviews.

3) Choose Fewer Colours

Interior: Try to limit your colours to 5 or less. This saves us time from having to work with multiple paints. In fact, the fewer colours you choose the more I may be able to discount you.

A job that requires multiple colours is not good. Painting in a few base colours is always easier.

Exterior: This is usually easier as not too many homes in Toronto have multiple colours. In this case less really can be more.

______________ Don't go crazy when picking your exterior paint colours.

4) Choose Colours that Match or Are Similar to the Original

For interiors this may be difficult since typically the reason you paint is to
change the colours. Here are some ways to make choices that will make our job easier, though:

– Choose the same colour for the trim and doors (usually white or an off-white)

– For walls avoid three coat situations. This means not choosing really dark colours if the walls are presently light and not choosing really light colours if they are dark since both will require more coats.

– Avoid painting accent walls since they always require 3 coats as well as more time to paint.

_______ Painting it white is often right. An accent wall makes our job a little more difficult.

5) Avoid Painting Stucco/Popcorn Ceilings at All Costs

Popcorn or stucco ceilings use up a ton of paint, and are more difficult to paint in most cases because they require an oil primer.
They also require more time to set up the room as belongings need to be covered and protected.
Not painting these ceilings can save you a lot of money.

________________ We could have multiple tips on why stucco ceilings are a bad idea.

6) More Is Less

Every painting company has a minimum to make it worth their while to come out and do the job. Ask to maybe do 2-4 more rooms and I may be able to give you a package deal.

________________ Painting a single room may not be worth our time.