FINDING A PAINTER

One of the hardest things we've had with regards to this farm is finding an interior painter who wants to tackle it AND shares the same vision as us.

The guy who did the foundation, and he did an excellent job on it by the way, his vision was sheet rock over the original walls, take up the hardwood floors and put down laminate, etc etc.  He said he could make it look like a brand new house, one room at a time.

That's not our vision.  We like the old charm of the house, it doesn't HAVE to be new. NEXT...

A second guy came and looked at it and, after not calling back for several days, he finally left a message saying yes he could "probably" do it, but he couldn't guarantee anything and then he dropped this little gem,
"you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".
Really?  Really?  Did you just DISS our beloved little farmhouse?  NEXT...

So I found two people now, one comes highly recommended through a coworker at another office of my company, and the other replied to my email describing our project and said

"that sounds like my kind of job".  

SO, we might have progress here.  I'm going to see when they can go out and take a look at it, hopefully it will be sometime SOON.

The best way to find a painter is to ask around.  You'd be surprised how many people know someone who either is a painter, or recently had something painted themselves.  Even through your business, you can ask around.  I've found that when someone is referred to you, no matter who referred them, they are more apt to do a much better job, because word of mouth is everything.  Of course, when all else fails, just go to Google and start looking.  What I always try to do is when I find the name of a company on a website that I am interested in, I turn around and Google the name of the company, and sometimes add the word "review" or "service" or even "scam" or "avoid" to the search terms and, hopefully, get some listings of the kind of work they do.  If your area has a Better Business Bureau, you can check them out there too.   When you do get your first or second or third choice, don't be afraid to tell them you are still looking around, don't tell them they are your only choice so far.
They'll work hard to earn your business.

In our case, the house is old, we know that.  There is paint bubbling up in spots, rough patches, some areas where we want to sheetrock over and cover up (an old doorway for example), even some unpainted spots.  But like I said, it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to look fresh and updated.

Fingers crossed....again.