Have you ever looked at the walls in your living room, and wondered why you ever liked agreeable gray in the first place?
Perhaps, as the calendar flips to April and temperatures start rising, you get the urge to freshen up your home’s decor. So, do you rush off to Lowe’s and grab some painting supplies, or do you call in a professional?
While the do-it-yourself approach might seem like the less expensive option, hiring an expert provides benefits as well.
“One is speed,” Shawn Thomas, owner of Paint EZ in Clayton, said. “(A professional) can get it done faster than a homeowner can do it. What it takes a homeowner a month to do, we can do in a day. Two, the quality is better. Everybody thinks they can paint until they start. Then, there’s materials. A professional knows what you need.
“Don’t use builder grade stuff. Use a quality product. There’s a sizable difference between builder grade and professional. It has its purposes, but it’s not durable. It doesn’t last. We use products that cost a little bit more per gallon, but they last a lot longer.”
Thomas likes Sherwin Williams products for his projects, but also offers Benjamin Moore and Behr products from time to time.
“My base is Cashmere,” he said of the Sherwin Williams brands. That’s my ‘good.’ My ‘better’ is Duration, and my ‘best’ is Emerald.”
A warranty is another perk to hiring out your painting projects. As with most professionals, the better the brand that goes up on the wall, the longer warranty you might receive. For instance, Paint EZ offers a two-year warranty when using Cashmere, five for Duration and seven for Emerald.
“That includes annual touch ups,” Thomas said. The customer will get an email after a year saying, ‘hey, you’re due for touch ups. If you need anything, reach out.’ We’ll schedule it. I’ll send a guy out to their house. And if you sell the home, it rolls over to the next homeowner.”
Depending on your choice of paint companies, you could also be supporting a local small business owner.
“Well, simply put, owning my own business is superior to working for someone else,” Thomas said. “I worked a lot of years for a lot of people, and I was rarely ever appreciated the way I feel I should have been. I love painting, I love transforming and I love making people happy. I love the smile on their faces after the project is complete. And this gives me more time to spend with my family as well.”
“Time is money” is a phrase that has been around long enough to become cliché, but it really should be a factor when making the DIY versus professional painting decision.
“What is your time worth? Because people get sticker shock when they get a paint quote, because they think it’s going to be cheap and it’s not,” Thomas said. “People think that it’s going to be a couple hundred dollars, and a couple hundred dollars doesn’t even touch the product, let alone the labor.
“Just know what your time is worth because, like I said before, what you can get done in a month, we can get done in a day. I’ve got crews that are ready to work and I stand by their work. … If there’s something you don’t like or something you want changed, it’s easy to change. It’s not concrete.”
This content is sponsored by Paint EZ of Clayton. To learn more, visit paintez.com/clayton.
