Blog | Painting In Partnership, Chicago's Premier Painting Contractors

Color Consultation Meets Client’s Need for a Colorful Environment

By Mario

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Color design consultating is a sure way to reduce the stress (and the mistakes) of making paint color selections for a whole house at once. People who crave color are often intimidated and overwhelmed by having to choose paint colors and how to have them work harmoniously together.

As house painting contractors, we are often called o to offer color and concept consultation to clients in the Chicago area. We recently worked on a house where the walls were “builder-white” throughout. Having lived there for a few months, our clients were very much color-deprived. However, they were at a loss on how to go about it and put it all together. They took advantage of a two and a half hour paint color consultation. The first picture gives you a glimpse at the color palette selected for their project.

In order to produce a result, which is both expressive of the clients’ personality and nurturing to them, we have to really listen to them and see how they respond to color. We sometime have to modify our recommendations, based on who will be using the room the most and the particular needs of that person. So, paint color consultation is very personal service that greatly enhances the value of a paint job.

White no more as shown in our picture! More importantly, the result is both pleasing and nurturing to the clients.

Paint Color Selection

Result After Paint Color Consultation

Categories : Paint Color Consulting

How the “Low Bid” Often Becomes the Costliest – Choosing Price Vs. True Value

By Mario

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

As a painting contractor in the Chicago area, I am faced almost daily with potential clients who struggle with the appeal of a low bid in their decision-making process. The current economic environment has caused the ranks of low-bidders to swell to new heights, making it even harder for consumers to decipher the true value in a house-painting proposal.

Today, this point was made clear in a phone conversation I had with one of the owners of a three-flat in Chicago. On the rear of the property, there a three-story deck structure with wood decking and painted steel framing, railings and posts. Four years ago, they had the steel repainted. She mentioned that 6 months after the repaint job, rust started to appear and the paint stated to flake off. Forty months later, the situation in much worse.

Low Bids vs. True Value

I voiced my concern that I may not be able to help because of the common practice of selecting the low-bidder on such projects. She did confirm that they had picked the low-bidder on the last job. I told her that we would surely not be the low-bidder, but that we could give the best long-term value. She thought that the painters used the wrong paint. I explained that it was very possible, but that the reason for the failure most likely lied in the poor or non-existent preparation of the surfaces prior to painting. I also told her about the rust inhibitive primer we use over bare areas, after they are scraped and sanded.

I think I got through to her because, at some point in the conversation, she told me how much they budgeted for the project (hopefully, they put enough money in the pot this time). She is sending me digital pictures of the structure so I can assess if it worth my time to bid for the job, considering the maximum amount they plan to spend.

As a painting contractor, I liked this conversation, because it focused the client on the real issue: what is it that creates true value in a paint job, price being only one part of the equation?

Categories : Painting Contractors

A Faux Finish and Mural Painting Can Be Repaired – With Skill!

By Mario

Saturday, April 16th, 2011

This past week, Painting in Partnership, from the Chicago area, repaired a decorative finish that we had executed ten years ago. We also repaired painted mural elements that had later been added to our work, by the client’s friend. The decorative painting had been damaged by a water leak in an upstairs bathroom, just above a doorway.

Repairing Decorative Finishes - Before

In those days, we used eggshell oil as a basecoat and oil glazes. With the new ASHA regulations, eggshell oil products were no longer available. We had to resort to reformulated satin oil products that were still on the market, at least for now. Even though the damage was limited to the upper portion of the doorway, we repainted the two side legs of the doorway opening to avoid creating any repair lines. Because we keep excellent records for all the decorative finishes we create for a client, we were able to recreate this painted finish perfectly. Our muralist, even though she did not do the original painting, was able to recreate the mural elements that had later been added to our work.

Repairing Decorative Finishes - After

This room was the only work we had ever done for this client. Yet, all she needed to do, after ten years, was to place a phone call to have us rescue the situation and help protect what had been a $5,000 dollar investment in the decorating of her dining room. She was thrilled. Halfway through the repair process, she took me in the adjacent room to show her next project. Someone had given her a bid to do this entire two-story room for an unbelievably low price of $750, including a decorative finish all over the walls. I made the point to her that someone who charges those kinds of prices cannot stay in business for long. I further explained that, because we price our services correctly, we have been in business for over twenty years and we were able to save her $5000 in her dining room.

So she asked me to bid for her room. To keep the cost down, we limited the decorative finish to the fireplace wall and will use plain paint on the other walls. The cost: $3,000 – she gladly hired us to do her next house painting project! In the short-run, our painting prices are higher than many others. However, in the long-run, we are the best value – she knows it well!

Categories : Decorative Finish

Matching Wood Finishes Tests the Skills of the Best Craftsmen

By Mario

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Wood Finishing - Our Samples

Painting in Partnership, from the Chicago area, was recently faced with an unusually high wood finishing challenge: Matching a factory-applied, six-layer lacquer cabinet finish unto two doors, casings, railings and baseboards. Everything had to be field-finished and spray equipment was not an option. Achieving an “exact” match was part of the requirements for this job.

As you may know, lacquer dries almost instantly and each coat melts into the previous one. The cabinet manufacturer had given us the products to use for the wood finishing. However, we could only use two of the products: the toner and the glaze. We had to separate the toner coat from the glaze coat with two layers of Enduro clear waterborne urethane made by General Finishes. Why did we use two layers: any holidays or shy areas in one clear coat would have ruined the toner coat when the glaze was applied! How did we get around the quick dry times: by using the skills of two well-coordinated craftsmen! The challenge was especially acute when we painted the twenty-five square foot door.

Wood Finishing - Final Result

To complicate things further, the wood used for the cabinets was alder and the wood used for the field woodwork was birch. A clear coat applied over alder wood results in a lovely brownish color. However, a clear coat over birch creates in a much lighter color. Since we were given birch to work with, we had to stain the birch wood to match the color of a sealed alder, so we could start our wood finishing on the same footing as the factory production. We used a quick drying waterborne stain from General Finishes and a seal coat on top of it, before we proceeded with the lacquer toner.

In all, eight layers were needed to create the desired matching finish. Our craftsmen at Painting in Partnership are experts at using cutting-edge products and technologies to meet the most challenging of our clients’ needs, that they involve wood finishing or any other aspects of painting and decorating or historical restoration.

Categories : Wood Finishing

Painting Cars by Hand – No More!

By Mario

Friday, March 18th, 2011

I recently came across an interesting piece of paint memorabilia, which sheds light on an important chapter in the development of the painting industry. Did you know that, up to the early 1920’s, cars were painted by hand? With all the coats needed and the long dry times, the painting process of an auto took 38 days. A giant bottleneck like this must really have upset Mr. Ford! Can you imagine the size of the paint shop? The advent of nitro cellulose lacquer and the concurrent development of sprayers changed all that, forever.

Painting of Cars Prior to Nitro Cellulose Lacquer

Following World War 1, there were great surpluses of nitro cellulose, which was no longer needed for the production of explosives. There were also large supplies of butyl alcohol. By the late 1910’s, laboratories, which had become a permanent feature of the painting industry, began to experiment with combining those two elements and one day, “presto”, there was lacquer! The quick dry time of lacquers, combined with the development of sprayers, reduced the painting time of a car from 38 days to 8 days and eventually to 8 hours. That made Mr. Ford, very happy!

The development of lacquer had a dramatic impact on the productivity of the automotive industry and the overall welfare of Americans. It took a few more years for the painting industry to develop brushing versions of lacquers, which could be used in the house-painting field.

In addition to preserving surfaces, Painting In Partnership, from the Chicago area, also looks to preserve and bring to life the history of the painting industry in the United States.

Categories : Paint Memorabilia

Painting in Partnership is proud to serve Chicago, the North Shore and
Northwest Suburbs, including these communities:

Arlington Heights	Glencoe	Lake Barrington	Oak Park
Barrington Hills	Glenview	Lake Bluff	Oakbrook
Barrington Shores	Hawthorne Woods	Lake Forest	Palatine
Barrington	Highland Park	Lake Zurich	Park Ridge
Burr Ridge	Highwood	Lincolnshire	Riverwoods
Crystal Lake	Hinsdale	Lincolnwood	South Barrington
Deer Park	Inverness	Long Grove	Tower Lakes
Deerfield	Kenilworth	North Barrington	Wilmette
Evanston	Kildeer	Northbrook	Winnetka
Wheaton	Naperville	Downers Grove	River Forest
Northfield	Wayne	Elgin	Libertyville

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Color Consultation Meets Client’s Need for a Colorful Environment

How the “Low Bid” Often Becomes the Costliest – Choosing Price Vs. True Value

A Faux Finish and Mural Painting Can Be Repaired – With Skill!

Matching Wood Finishes Tests the Skills of the Best Craftsmen

Painting Cars by Hand – No More!

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