Home improvement projects are a necessarily “evil,” especially if you live in a homeowners association that dictates lofty standards for the appearance of the home and its landscape. Over time, the home becomes weathered, the paint may start chipping, tiles may become dislodged. To maintain the value and appearance of your home, general maintenance work needs to be done, whether or not a homeowners association is breathing down your neck to do it.
Home improvement jobs tend to get stacked up into the infamous “Honey Do List” — you know, the endless projects a wife dictates for her honey to do.
The Dreaded House Painting Job
Painting a home is a big — and expensive — job that usually works its way to the bottom of the “honey do list” because it’s such a chore. The yuckiest, most time-consuming part of the job is the pre-painting work. First, the old paint has to be scraped off and all the dirt, mold, mildew and other nasty stuff removed. Some of this labor can be reduced by using a power washer, so long as you know what you’re doing. If used incorrectly, the power washer might etch your wood, blast the mortar out between any brickwork and so forth. You also need to know what you are doing before painting over the power washed area — some people tend to lose patience and paint over wet walls.
After the home exterior has been scraped, then you need to caulk gaps around windows, doors, molding, siding and the like. If you have wood siding, look for nail heads that may be sticking up a little bit. If you find any, nail them back down using a nail countersink and putty the hole.
Once all that labor has been done (and maybe a bit more, such as preparing the landscaping around the house for the paint job and other demands on the honey do list), then the painting begins! You hope and pray it’s not going to rain out and that your credit card will go through when you buy hundreds of dollars worth of paint.
Your costs will run somewhere in the ballpark of $600 for paint, another $60 a day for equipment rental (if you’re using a power washing), another $100 or so in extra expenses, such as caulking supplies and equipment and then your labor. You’ll spend around 50 hours on the project if you have a 3-bedroom home.
With all this, no wonder exterior house painting tends to find its way to the bottom of the “honey do list.”
College Students Create a Winning Solution, Delivering Some of the Highest Customer Satisfaction Ratings in the Industry
If there’s anyone driven to earn money these days and not afraid to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit, it’s college students.
After receiving vigorous training from the College Works Painting program, a national enterprise launched in 1987 to encourage college students to earn valuable business skills, participating college students can do a bang-up job on your house painting project. A typical paint job involves the following services from College Works:
- Full area power wash prior to painting
- Trench along stucco/foundation perimeter of home (to bury the paint line)
- Scrape and power-sand all peeling paint areas
- Prime all bare wood
- Galvanized metal primer on all bare metal surfaces
- MoldAvenger biodegradable moss and mildew remover
- Wire-brush flaking and deteriorating stucco
- Stucco-patch large areas
- Caulk small cracks in stucco
- Caulk seams and fascia boards
- Only top grade & top brand paints are used
The prep work and painting job is not all you receive. College Works Painting uses only 100% Acrylic Paints from the top manufacturers like Kelly-Moore, Glidden, ICI, Sherwin Willams and Parker Paints. They carry full workers compensation coverage as well as $1,000,000 in liability insurance. You also get a 2 year guarantee. Compared with other contractors, you are getting a huge value.
Not only will you enjoy tremendous savings and a quality job, but College Works has one of the highest consumer satisfaction ratings in the industry.
The Costs
As a ball park figure, an average 3-bedroom, 2-bath home will cost around $2,000 to paint. When you’re trying to convince your wife to let College Works take over your “honey do” painting project, you can get a better idea of the cost by getting a free estimate. There are “standard” and “premium” levels of service available. The premium will deliver a six-year guarantee and other perks.
Help Wanted - Hiring College Students
College Works has been responsible for painting over 12,000 homes since 2006. It hires 2000+ college students every year. This is a huge opportunity for students who need some extra cash to pay for tuitions, room and board, and textbooks.
Working for College Works will create more than financial rewards. With its leadership internship programs, College Works Painting offers undergraduate students a unique opportunity to learn how to build a business, cultivate customer relationships, and build a results oriented team. Hands-on training and experience are critical for any student who wants to excel in “the real world.”
All Around Winners
Homeowners will save a lot of time, labor — and perhaps frustration — by hiring College Works Painting to handle their exterior paint jobs. And the student works will receive much needed funds, vigorous practical training as well as invaluable small business experience.
Find out why people are raving about the College Works painters by checking out the testimonials for homeowners and testimonials for students.
Thanks to College Works, the “honey do list” just got a lot shorter — and the job has probably been done a lot better!
