When Should You Hire Professional Painters?

Painting is one of those projects that seems really appealing to DIY until you are half-way through it. For some, painting a wall or a small room is an easy project for an afternoon. For others, opening up a can of paint seems like a herculean task. If you’re somewhere in between and aren’t sure if you need a painter, here are some questions to consider to determine when you should hire professional painters.

How Big is the Job?

This is one of the most significant reasons you might want to hire (or not hire) a painter. If you’re just painting one wall, it may not be worth paying a painter. But if you plan to paint the whole house, it may not be worth your time. Sure, you could try doing it yourself, but the more rooms you are painting, the larger the time savings are from hiring a professional. Painting an entire house is a big job that could span multiple weekends. Hiring a professional can same tons of time and effort and get the job done quicker.

Also, if you plan to paint the outside of your house, you are inviting a whole new level of complications. You have to contend with weather, for one thing. And if the weather doesn’t cooperate, a DIY job can extend far longer than you ever intended. Also, details like trim and architectural features can take longer than you expect and require extra care.

Do You Have a Multi-Story Home?

If you have the time and the willpower, you could paint the outside of your single-story home. But if you have two or three stories, painting the exterior of your home becomes much more complicated—and dangerous! First, there’s just a matter of the equipment you will need. To safely paint the upper portions of your home, you will need some serious extension ladders. And then you need a way to access the paint when you are up there. All-in-all, you may end up spending enough on equipment rentals that you may as well just hire a professional who comes with all their own tools.

Are Your Walls Ready to Be Painted?

If all you need to do is slap on some paint, painting a wall can be pretty straightforward. But often, by the time a wall needs painting, it also needs a lot more. A good painter doesn’t just paint over imperfections. Prep work may include stripping or sanding old paint, especially if it is peeling or bubbling. You also may need to remove paint if your walls are already covered in many layers. If your wall has holes from artwork, mirrors, or anything else you hung, those need to be filled. If a wall has been damaged, you may need to use plaster or even some drywall to patch it. So when a wall needs more than paint, you may want to hire a painter for all the things they can do besides painting.

Is it More Than Walls?

A large flat wall is about the easiest thing you can paint. Unfortunately, not every paint job consists exclusively of large flat walls. How much detail is involved will help determine whether you should hire a professional. If you have base or crown molding, you need to tape off the molding before you can paint. If you feel confident in your painting skills, you can try to use a brush to get a straight line along the molding, but tape is the best way to get a clean edge. But there’s a lot more than molding to worry about.

Woodwork around windows and doors can slow you down, so if the area you are painting has lots of edges, you may want to hire professionals to save time. If you are painting an area with railings, wainscotting, or other detailed woodwork, you need to be sure that you don’t ruin them by overpainting. Painted woodwork can be beautiful, but it needs to be painted with a brush and requires some level of skill to do it right. If you have beautiful woodwork in your home, don’t risk spoiling it with a bad paint job. Instead, get a TrustDALE certified professional painter who can do it right.

Will You Need Multiple Coats?

If you plan to change colors, especially from a darker to a lighter color, you will need multiple coats. A primer may be a good idea, too. If you know that you will need multiple coats, you could go one of two ways. You could decide that hiring painters to do twice the work with twice the paint is expensive, and the savings are worth investing your own time and labor. On the other hand, you could say that the larger the project, the greater the time and energy savings from hiring a pro. Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you want to save labor or save money. But whichever way you go, considering that you will need multiple coats for a project can help push your decision one way or the other.

Finding the Right Painter for the Job

Painting is a pretty easy business to get into. The tools are inexpensive, and it doesn’t require much training or any certifications. But that means that finding a painter means sorting through plenty of half-baked fly-by-night painting companies to find someone you can trust. Or you could skip all that and hire a local Atlanta TrustDALE certified painting professional. Every TrustDALE certified painter and every member of the TrustDALE Circle of Trust must pass Dale’s rigorous 7-point investigative review to ensure high levels of customer service, reliability, fair pricing, and quality products and service. They are also covered by Dale’s trademark $10,000 Make-It-Right™ Guarantee.