This is the presentation of Monk's Home Improvements that answers frequently asked questions about painting the interior and exteriors of homes. Painting is Monk's bread and butter and they always know best!

1. Painting FAQs Created by: !
Monk’s Home Improvements

2. –Monk’s Home Improvements
!
The following are some of the most common
questions our customers ask about their upcoming
painting projects… Hope you enjoy!

3. When should I schedule my painting estimate?
❖ You should schedule the estimate for
your painting once your sheetrock has
been installed. !
❖ Once your sheetrock has been hung,
you are about 6 weeks away from
painting. !
❖ Your contractors still need to tape,
spackle and sand your sheetrock, install
your trim and hang your interior doors
and install the kitchen cabinets among
other things. !
❖ Once the sheetrock is up, most
surprises have been found and the
house tends to stay the way it is.

4. When should I start painting?
❖ We want to start painting when the carpenters
are completely finished. !
❖ You will not save time on a new construction
job by having us start work while the
carpenters are working in a different part of
the house.!
❖ Carpenters create lots of dust which will
inevitably end up in your trim paint and ruin
the finish. !
❖ We are comfortable working in the house with
most tile and kitchen cabinet contractors. !
❖ You will want your electrician to return after
we are completely finished to hang your
actual light fixtures. If the electrician hangs
your fixtures before we paint, we will either
paint around them or he will need to return to
re-hang them when the job is completed.

5. What is Monk’s Home Improvement’s responsibility
on a new construction job?
❖ Generally speaking…. On a new
construction or major renovation
project, we will not be responsible for
any work on the new sheetrock. !
❖ If the house is a mix of new sheetrock
and old walls, we are usually
responsible for repairing the old walls. !
❖ We are not responsible for rebuilding
new trim that was installed with large
dents or gaps.!
❖ If you have a new banister or railing
being installed, it is important to find
out who is responsible for staining it.
Sometimes we stain it and sometimes
the floor contractor stains it.

6. What goes first, the floors or the painting?
❖ The absolute best situation for the
homeowner is to have the floor contractor
complete the sanding, staining and one coat
of polyurethane before we arrive. !
❖ We will then protect the floors with resin
paper while we paint. When we finish, the
floor contractor comes back and applies his
final coat of polyurethane.!
❖ We have trouble taping to the new
polyurethane on the floor without damaging
it, we will be creating dust in the house that
will end up on the new polyurethane and if
a ladder or bucket scratches the uncured
polyurethane, it is difficult to repair. !
❖ We have no choice but to stand on your new
floors while we work.

7. What goes first, the floors or the painting?
(Continued)
❖ On the other hand, if the floor contractor doesn’t start his sanding until after
we finish, you should expect to find dust on your newly painted walls. The
floor contractor will also ding up the paint job on the baseboard and may hit
some of the walls with the handle of his sander as he sands the floor.!
❖ If we paint after the sanding and before the final coat of polyurethane, you
will find most rooms dust-free and coated with fresh paint and polyurethane.
Your floor and walls will be in perfect condition. !
❖ Only the kitchens and bathrooms will have any dust in them.!
❖ Most reputable floor contractors have worked this way and will not be
surprised if you ask for this arrangement. !
❖ If a floor contractor doesn’t want to do this, it is probably because someone
wants to get the job finished quickly so they can get paid and not because
they want to give you the best job possible.

8. How do you paint my trim?
❖ All trim gets caulked and the nail holes
get two coats of an epoxy wood filler. !
❖ We then prime all trim with an oil based
primer. If your trim comes pre-primed,
we will be priming it again. !
❖ We need to apply this coat of primer to
cover the wood filler and caulk we have
applied to your nail holes and seams. !
❖ After we prime your trim we apply two
coats of paint. We sand your trim after
we fill your nail holes, after we prime it
and after the first coat of paint. !
❖ Oil based paint is also easier to sand and
will give you a smoother finish on your
trim. We recommend a semi-gloss finish
for your trim.

9. What is the right way to paint new
construction windows and doors?
❖ It is extremely important that all sides of new construction windows and exterior doors
are primed and painted. !
❖ If you have a problem with your windows years after your job is completed, the first
thing the window manufacturer will check is to see if the sides of your windows have
been primed and painted. !
❖ If the sides of your windows are not painted, your warranty is probably void. Because
windows tilt to the inside, we consider this the responsibility of the interior painter. !
❖ When we are hired to re-paint new houses several years after they have been completed,
we find bare, unpainted wood on the sides of new windows on a regular basis.!
❖ We will paint the tops of all doors in your home. If you would like us to paint the bottom
of the interior doors, we need you to have the contractor remove and re-hang the doors
for us.!
❖ In our opinion, it is not important to paint the bottoms of most interior doors. We think
that it is important to paint all 6 sides of a new exterior door.

10. How do you prime and paint my walls?
❖ We recommend having your new sheetrock walls
primed immediately after the taping and spackling
job but before any of the interior trim is hung.!
❖ We can prime the sheetrock of most any house (up
to 20,000 sq ft) in 2 days.!
❖ Once the walls are a uniform white, it is easy to tell
if the seams, corners and screw heads are evenly
finished.!
❖ Priming the walls before the finish trim is installed
also makes it easier for your finish carpenters to
see exactly how their trim looks on a white wall. I!
❖ After priming, we coat all walls with two coats of
Latex paint. We recommend a flat finish for your
ceiling, a matte finish for most walls and an
eggshell finish for your kitchen and bathrooms. On
a large job it may be worthwhile for you to hire a
color consultant.

11. Is there a difference between painting new construction houses and an existing home?
❖ Absolutely!!
❖ While similar, each type of painting has different demands.!
❖ For a new construction house, nothing has ever been painted before. Particular
attention must be paid to all nail holes and caulk lines. You need a large,
experienced crew to paint in a new construction house so the job is not rushed, but
is completed in a timely manner. !
❖ Wall repair is usually minor or not required. New construction houses are not full of
delicate and valuable items that can be broken or stolen.!
❖ When re-painting a residential home, the character of the painter counts as much as
his skill. The painters must be aware of any variety of small and delicate items that
need to be protected or moved. !
❖ We try to work from room to room while giving the customer as much of their
privacy as possible during the job. We do not use radios inside of people’s homes.
Protecting the floor, carpets and walking areas is paramount.

12. How do you fix plaster walls and ceilings?
❖ We mix our own plaster when
repairing plaster. !
❖ Depending on the size of the hole, we
may mix the plaster with steel wool. !
❖ If a significant section of a plaster
wall or ceiling is damaged, we may
recommend removing the entire
surface and installing sheetrock or
patching with sheetrock. !
❖ When dealing with cracks in plaster,
we use a knife to open up the crack
and remove the pressure before
filling the crack with new plaster.

13. How long does interior painting take?
❖ An average interior room takes
us a day and a half. !
❖ We can frequently finish within
a day, but because of dry times
and touch-ups, we may need a
few hours the following day to
complete a room. !
❖ If you are doing several rooms
at once, things go a little faster
because we can work on a
second room while the first
room is drying.

14. Do you remove wallpaper or do you paint over it?
❖ Monk’s Painting will not paint over wallpaper unless it has already been previously
painted over by someone else. !
❖ The first person to paint over wallpaper creates a big problem for someone else that
must be corrected sometime in the future. !
❖ It is very difficult to remove wallpaper once it has been painted over until the glue
fails and the paper starts coming off by itself.!
❖ After removing your wallpaper, we will prime your walls with one coat of an oil
based primer. !
❖ This coat of oil based primer prevents any remaining glue from ruining the paint job
over future years. If the walls are painted without priming them, your paint will
flake and peel for years to come. !
❖ It is very difficult to solve this problem once the walls have been painted. After the
oil based primer dries, we will repair any cracks and smooth the walls before
painting.

15. Do you paint kitchen cabinets?
❖ Yes!!
❖ We typically recommend oil
based paint for kitchen
cabinets.!
❖ Cabinets get a full coat of oil
based primer and two coats of
paint. !
❖ We recommend changing the
handles, pulls and possibly
your hinges when you paint
your cabinets.

16. Do you do faux painting or hang wallpaper?
❖ We do not do faux (specialty)
painting and we do not hang
wallpaper. !
❖ Most good wallpaper hangers
and faux painters want to
practice their particular craft
full time. !
❖ We are usually hired to come in
before them to prepare the
walls and apply a base coat so
that they can come in and get
straight to work.

17. Do you sheetrock?
❖ We are the company you want to hire
to install sheetrock in a bedroom or
two but we are not the company you
want to hire if you need to install
sheetrock on a large new construction
job. !
❖ Sheetrock contractors are set up to
come in to an empty house with a giant
crew and hang sheets upon sheets of
sheetrock faster than you could ever
imagine.!
❖ When we finish basements we hang all
of our own sheetrock, but you would
be better served with a sheetrock
contractor on anything larger than that.

18. – Your friends at Monk’s Home Improvements
Thank you for watching!