Demon Spawn: The Painters From Hell

On May 16, I posted a couple pics of our dining room "under construction," as it were. The painting was to have taken a week to ten days; unfortunately, the project took a full two weeks -- maybe because the painters had to redo so much of their work, which is surprising since they were only working in two rooms, a very small entrance way, and a hallway. Of course, some things got five coats of paint! Why five coats, you may ask? Because after the bookcases were primered (one coat), they painted them two coats the wrong color, and had to repaint them an additional two coats the correct color once my wife and I discovered the error.

I was going to do an entire blog post -- with photos -- as a way of flushing all this crap out of my system, but the wife said let it go, it's not worth it. (She, who told the company she never wants one of their painters to ever set foot in our house again -- so all the repair and touch up work we had -- and still have -- to do is on us, along with the help of our handyman, at a cost, of course.)

The dust generated from spray painting the ceiling was so intense that it set off our smoke alarms. We had dust and white spray paint everywhere! Even in rooms in which the painters never set foot! After these yahoos left, we had to scrape every window in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and entrance way with razor blades to remove the spray. My wife, bless her heart, spent three hours scrubbing the white spray off the fireplace bricks with a bloody toothbrush to get in amongst all the nooks and crannies in the brick. And let's not forget the three hours cleaning the two sets of full-window blinds from the dining room, slat by bloody slat, because the brainless painters left them lying on the floor to inherit all the dust they generated during the spray painting. I could go on, and on (and on), but the wife said, "Let it go." But, oh, it's so hard....

Here's a typical photo of the quality of the work: this is one of the pieces of hardware for the living room curtain rods. Note the care with which they masked the hardware; the care with which they removed the surrounding wallpaper; the care with which they "prepped" the wall for the paint. This, by the way, is the finished work. My wife and I had to take a box cutter and cut around the hardware, scrape away all the wallpaper and crap they didn't remove, prep the wall correctly, and then paint it. The hardware in the dining room was so completely covered with paint that we simply purchased new hardware and replaced it all.

This is one of the painted doors left in their wake: when they removed the blue tape, the tape took off much of the paint, clear down to the old color. But, hey, it's on the inside, nobody will see it -- until they open the bloody door! We fixed it as part of the cleanup and repair. Oh, and note the color of the floor in the background: this is (or was) bare concrete because the carpeting had been removed prior to the the arrival of the painters. I guess since nothing was on the floor, and it would eventually get covered with new carpeting, who cared that the concrete was now splashed with white paint!

Ah, but life is short, and tomorrow, hopefully, we'll finish up the last of the painting fixes and touch ups.