Have you ever thought about hiring a painter to paint your house, bedroom, living room? Well, I have and my experience in hiring a painter has been quite the experience.
About five years ago my wife and I wanted to paint the living room because it was too dark. The living room was a dark maroon (I couldn’t tell the shade of maroon). We grow tired of that color and wanted to make it much brighter. We wanted to liven up the area, make a fun place to hang out with our family and friends.
We got paint samples and talked about which color we wanted to paint the living room. We also talked about who was going to do the painting, us or a hire painter. We also talked about getting new carpet and new furniture.
So after two weeks of talk about which color, should we get new furniture, new carpet, etc. We decided to;
- Paint the living room ourselves.
- Keep the furniture, but get new carpeting.
We were going to paint the room first them get the new carpet. We bought the paint from Pittsburgh paints. We were excited about painting the living room.
Then it happened, I got a call from my boss. He said that he needed me to help out in the office. I asked why, he said he had to fire someone and he asked if I could help out.
So I agreed.
This created problems for my wife and I because I couldn’t help out with the painting and she couldn’t do all the work herself. So, we decided to hire someone to do the painting for us. I asked around about some good painters. I got a few numbers of some painters. I called few of them and got some quotes.
We were a little shocked at the prices, but really didn’t have a choice, we wanted to get this done ASAP. We decided on this one guy. We called a few of his references to check him out. All reference said he did an OK job, but one reference said that his neighbor saw the painter smoking a cigarette (the kind you CAN”T buy in a store) out side his house. We didn’t like that, because we have a daughter and we don’t want to expose her to drugs.
We went with another painter. We called his references. Most of them were happy with him and his crew, but complained about the painter starting another job while in the middle painting their house. The painter took half his crew to the new job. The reference said that it took him twice as long to get the job done. We decided not to use him.
We were about to give up on painting the living room, when a gym buddy of mine recommended that I call Angie’s List. I said Angie’s List? My friend, Mark, said that he has used them and was very happy with using anyone on the list (they have lots of different services). He told me that services and professionals are rated on Angie’s List. He gave the phone number, 888-490-3615.
I called and talked to a representative. The rep, stated that the customers of the service professionals rate the service. I was happy to hear that. I asked if there were any painters in my area, Houston, TX that have a good rating, they had several. To make a long short, we ended up using a painter from Angie’s List. My friend, Mark was right about Angie’s list.
