Most customers I work with have never had a real paint contractor in their home before. They’ve had a relative do a bedroom in college, or hired the cheapest guy off Facebook for a quick refresh, or DIYed everything they own. So they don’t know what to expect from a real job.
Here’s the honest version of how a Painting By Lee project runs from start to finish.
Before the job: walk-through and proposal
Before we ever start a job, there’s usually a walk-through or detailed photo review. For straightforward interior work, photos through Project Assessment™ are enough — Lee can see the surfaces, the conditions, the scope, and write a real proposal from the submission. For bigger work — full exteriors, multi-room projects, restoration jobs — I’ll come look in person.
The proposal you receive is specific. It lists what we’re painting, what products we’re using, what prep is included, what’s excluded, and the investment. If anything in the proposal is unclear, you ask. The proposal is the agreement once it’s signed — what’s in it is what we do.
After approval and deposit, you get a calendar booking link to schedule your start date. Scheduling is confirmed only after deposit is received. We never hold a date before deposit — that’s a hard rule.
Day one: protection and prep
On day one, our team arrives and the first hour is setup. Drop cloths down on every floor surface we’ll be over. Furniture moved or sheeted (if there’s furniture in the work area). Fixtures, switch plates, vents, and hardware masked or removed. Doors that are getting refinished come off their hinges and go to wherever we’re going to spray them.
Then prep starts. Surface washing, sanding, filling, caulking, spot-priming. The room gets quiet and dusty for a while — vacuum sanders catch most of it, but interior prep work is dusty and we communicate when we’re about to start the loud stuff.
End of day one: prep is done, the room is masked and ready for paint, the floor is protected, the tools and product are staged for paint day. We clean up at the end of every day — not just the end of the job. Dust gets vacuumed, drop cloths get folded, tools go back to the truck. Walking into the room the morning of day two should feel like walking into a prepared space, not a construction site.
Day two onwards: paint
Day two is paint day for most rooms. First coat goes on, gets the appropriate dry time, second coat goes on. Some products need 4 hours between coats, some need overnight — we work to the manufacturer’s spec, not to a rush.
For interior work, two coats is the standard. Always. One coat doesn’t hide previous color reliably, doesn’t give the finish its full depth, and doesn’t last as long. If anyone quotes you one coat, they’re cutting the work.
We work room by room when possible. A whole-home repaint runs in sequence — finish one room, move to the next, keep the path through the house open. We don’t sheet off the entire house simultaneously and live there for a week.
For exterior work, the rhythm changes. Pressure washing happens first, then dry-down time, then prep, then paint. Weather is the variable — humidity over 85% slows dry times, temperatures below 50°F push paint into its lower-limit application zone, rain shuts down a day entirely. We watch the forecast and communicate when weather is going to move us.
During the job: communication
Things change on every job. A wall takes more prep than expected. A color isn’t behaving like we thought. A piece of trim is rotten under the paint and needs to be replaced before we can finish. Every honest job has moments like these.
What you should expect from us: a heads-up before something changes. If we hit a surprise — rot, lead, asbestos, a substrate that needs different treatment — we stop, document, communicate. Sometimes it’s a quick conversation and we move on. Sometimes it’s a change order that affects the scope or the timeline. Either way, you find out from us before the work happens, not after.
The flip side: if something on your end changes — you want to add a room, change a color, move a piece of furniture into the work area — tell us as soon as you know. Change orders are part of every real project. They go smoothest when they’re communicated early.
End of day routine
At the end of every workday on your project:
- Tools and products are cleaned and packed.
- Drop cloths are folded or rolled.
- Any high-traffic path through the house is cleared.
- Trash from the day’s work is bagged and removed or staged for removal.
- The space is left livable — not pristine, but you can walk through and use the rest of your house normally.
If there’s a specific reason to leave something differently — wet paint in a doorway, a fixture mid-removal — we tell you before we leave.
Walk-through and close-out
End of the job is a walk-through with the customer. We go room by room, you look at the work, you flag anything you want addressed. Touch-ups, missed spots, anything that doesn’t read clean — we fix it on the spot or schedule a quick return.
When you’re satisfied, the final balance is due. Most jobs close out the same day as the walk-through. We pull our last drop cloths, vacuum any residual dust, and leave the space yours.
You also receive a written record: the proposal you approved, any change orders, photo documentation if it was relevant (always for restoration work), and a list of the specific products and colors used in each room. If you need to touch something up two years from now, you have the exact product names and color codes.
After the job
The work has a warranty. The specifics are in your proposal — typically a year on interior workmanship, sometimes longer for premium products and full exteriors. If something fails because of how we applied it, we come back and fix it. If something fails because of a separate issue (a leak, structural movement, a child with a sharpie), that’s a different conversation.
We also tell customers: if you have a question six months from now — about touch-ups, cleaning, repairs, or anything paint-related — you can call. We’ve already done the work; we don’t disappear after the check clears.
The takeaway
A Painting By Lee job is predictable. Day one is prep. Day two onwards is paint. End of day is clean. End of job is walk-through. Communication happens before changes, not after.
That predictability is the whole point. You’re hiring us to make this process boring for you. Boring is the goal. The interesting part is the finished space — not the process of getting there.