Setting Clear Expectations with Your Painter Contractor

As a painting contractor on the Main Line of Philadelphia, we perform interior painting on a range of finish-levels from high-end custom work down to apartment repaints. Some of our customers want perfection from their painters, while others are simply happy to see new colors on the walls of their home.

This discrepancy on what the finish quality expectations are is a major communication issue that must be set up front – before the painting project begins. Setting clear expectations with your house painter is a mutual responsibility that we believe starts with the first meeting, between the homeowner and the painter.

As your professional painting contractor, we also believe it is up to us – the hired expert – to initiate this dialogue with you and to guide the conversation accordingly. Not only is this setting clear expectations about the painting finish standards, it also sets clear expectations for what the overall painting price will be.

We recently had two painting projects that had very different levels of finish quality expectations. One job was in Wayne, where the homeowners were simply happy to see new colors on the walls.

During this same week, we had a painting restoration job in Malvern where the customers were expecting their walls, ceilings, and trim to look brand new. They wanted perfection from their painters, and nothing short of perfection would be acceptable.

Now, most professional painters can achieve perfection, but the conversation for clear expectations needs to revolve around one word – restoration.

Herein, there is “painting” – better known as “repaint” from inside the painting contractor world. And then there is “restoration.” Restoration painting primarily means the painters take considerably more time to prep the project.

Restoration painting can also be performed at different levels – with varying degrees or qualities of finish, from a partial restoration all the up to full restoration. Of course, the more restoration the homeowner expects, the more the homeowner also needs to understand that more labor time will be involved.

In this series on establishing clear expectations with your professional painters, in the next blog, we will describe how your painter can achieve a full restoration look, or more commonly how painting contractors can thoroughly prep before painting to achieve a high-quality finish.

As we all know, the quality is in the details.