Painting and Paperhanging CAN work together!
One of the interesting contrasts between myself and Mr. Fred J. Naulta (my mentor and the person who taught me to install wallcoverings) is that he could absolutely not keep his hands out of paint. From the very first day I enjoyed paperhanging so much I had no problem NOT painting but that was not the case with Fred. Once in a while he would do a big paint job and lose money on it and he would promise himself he was going to do nothing but papering. For a time that promise would stick but inevitably he would find himself dragging the ladders and drop cloths out of the back of the shop and once again dip his brush. He just plain loved painting.
Pride in what you are and in the niche you have found in the marketplace is all important in your personal success. I believe when the Good Book says, "Pride goeth before a fall" it means exactly that. If your pride in yourself and your work goes then soon so will you!
I take pride in being a paperhanger to the bone. I know a good deal about painting mostly by association with other tradespeople but my "thing" is definitely wallcovering installations. Mr. Naulta took pride in being a complete decorator. He did interior and exterior painting, faux finishing and paperhanging.
There is no greater teacher than teaching and one of the most interesting things I've learned in running The American School of Paperhanging Arts is the regional differences around the country. We have had students from every state come to our school to learn wallcovering installations. I have learned that climate forces crafts people to have different techniques in the desert southwest and the cold wet northwest and northeast. Likewise business practices are also different.
In some areas people think nothing of hiring one contractor to do the exterior painting another for the interior painting and still another to do the papering. However in other regions particularly the northeast they expect to hire one "decorator" to do it all as a matter of convenience. Still other sections, especially sparsely populated areas, might require that the "decorator" would also do electrical, plumbing and home remodeling because crafts people are so hard to come by.
Weather with great changes in temperature combined with snow and ice and personal preference (as with Mr. Naulta) or a shortage of available crafts people may cause you to want or have to do both painting and papering. I worked with Fred as an apprentice for only two years but I was around him a great deal for over twenty years. I have also worked with literally hundreds of painters who needed to add wallcovering installations to round out their winter workload. So over the years I have had the opportunity to learn a good bit about the do's and don'ts of successfully mixing this much talent and skill with scheduling, employees, paint and wallpaper stores and the needed cooperation of customers and their loyalty.
I have learned that interior and exterior paint DON'T go necessarily go together especially from a seasonal (weather) standpoint. Interior painting and paperhanging go together as great winter work. Exterior painting is definitely summer work. At Naulta and Company we even changed our working hours with the seasons. During winter months, realizing you could only start to work in occupied homes when homeowners were ready to receive you we met for coffee at 7:30 and started work at 8:30. But summer work was from "can till can't" as Fred called it. We met at 6:00 am and started work at 7:00 am. We then usually worked till about an hour before dark at which time we stopped to take down ladders, remove cloths from shrubs and bushes and wash brushes.
Fred has an absolute cut off time of the year for interior work and after that he would not schedule anymore of it. We just concentrated on finishing up work that was already scheduled. This is where customer loyalty comes in. He had a reputation far and wide in excellence and dependability and most of his customers would wait their turn. I said "most". Fred also had a kind and soft heart and was subjected to a lot of begging. It usually went like this, "I know you don't do interior work after May 1st but my daughter is getting married in June and you just have to ...oh, please....oh thank you so much...I just knew you would understand...!" Later we would find out that it was really June of the year two thousand!
My point is you must be firm and let your customers know how you work and why. The trick here is to work your schedule to help YOU the most. The customer will get help in their turn. This is most important in areas of more harsh weather. Keep some interior jobs on pot luck, "I'll call you if I can do it before next September" but make it clear this is at your discretion just in case you have a late or early snow that prevents exterior work.
Many paint and wallcovering stores who cater to contractors are very helpful and even change their store hours in summer months. Keep a color book at your shop where you can place your order by phone a few days early and don't forget all the sundries. You may even want it delivered so you can have more time with the crew. A paint shaker and color machine were indispensable to Mr. Naulta especially in the "outside" season, as were many gallons of tinting base at the shop and on the truck.
During spring and fall when the weather is vacillating between wet/dry and warm/cool it is important to split the crew so some of your people can start prepping those interiors. Filling, sanding and priming are things that can be done in small areas on and off for a week or two as long as inconvenience to the customer is kept to a minimum.In the spring gutters can be cleaned and scraped, shrubbery trimmed and siding filled and spot primed in advance of "summer season."
A little tip in regard to gutters. In the spring those gutters are full of autumn leaves and winter debris. With all this stuff hanging over the edges and stuck all over the gutters you know they must cleaned inside and out before painting. STOP DOING THIS FOR FREE! There are some great snap on hinged gutter guards that come in three foot lengths and install in seconds. These sell for pennies a foot. Cleaning gutters and installing gutter guards can easily be added to your exterior work for several dollars a foot and suddenly your being paid for something you used to do for free.
A tip for this operation. Take a section of large diameter PVC pipe and drill a hole in the coupling end of it. Clip a pot hook to it and hang it on the gutter ahead of you. Place a wheelbarrow under it. This allows you to funnel gutter debris straight down to the waiting wheelbarrow to minimize clean up.
Tool separation is a great key to making interior/exterior work mix well. This is somewhat expensive in the beginning but can be minimized through wise and timely buying. Have a complete set of drops for exterior that NEVER go inside and vice versa. MARK THEM! Show each employee, especially the young ones, how to use a wire brush to clean the feet of a step ladder so winter mud doesn't wind up in the carpet or scratching hardwood and marble floors.
During the change over time of the fall educate your people about the difference between the public and private areas in a home. This may seem like common sense to you, but to an inexperienced youngster or an uneducated helper or employee it's very necessary. Prep can be started as mentioned before during questionable weather in public areas without much distress to the household and there the more private areas can be prepped when the job is going full tilt. Remember just because it's a bedroom it's not necessarily a private area. Unoccupied guest rooms are public so ask practical questions about how your customers home works letting them know that you are trying to arrange your work so as to be as little trouble to them as possible.
Try to arrange a small heated storage area with the customer. It is very important to allow the wallcoverings to acclimate to the home for a least a day or two before installation during extreme weather. Be sure to do your quantity, quality, pattern number and lot number check before storing the goods. This will allow you to work out any "bugs" in the wallcovering order out long before installation begins. This storage area will also allow you to store wallcovering primers, fillers, etc. on the job so that every employee sent there to work doesn't have to have a van. They can even take a cab or city bus if you are doing your work in a urban area.
Don't remove a whole house full of electrical switch and outlet covers at once! This is very dangerous especially in houses with children. Trim your primer around them carefully. It is unnecessary to prime the area behind them anyway. Then remove them one room at a time as finish work proceeds.
The kitchen area is the most public and most private. By this I mean it is everything without a kitchen that is working well the rest of the home feels turned upside down. Do it as quickly as possible and do it well. Then the customer will see you do know your business and she will have the "heartbeat" of her home back. You can pretty well do the rest of the house at your own leisure.
Spend a few extra minutes when scheduling work in the master bedroom suite. If the kitchen is the heartbeat of the home then the master suite is surely the nervous system. Keep this always in mind. Little care here goes a long way in customer appreciation.
If you like music while you work bring your own radio. Before you unplug the clock radio to move the furniture note the time and alarm and reset them before you leave for the day. If you want to turn a prince of a customer into a grizzly bear overnight just let them wake up an hour later for work to a wide open acid rock or wailing country music!
I carry a couple of plastic serving trays so I can place all their personal cosmetics on them. One his and hers. I can then easily carry all of them to place out of the way and the end of my day place them back for their night use. This could even become life or death important with certain night stand medications so PAY ATTENTION!
Speaking of life and death...when you are working inside a customer's home you must change you mode of thinking in regard to children. Make certain that paste is not put in a place where children can put their hands into it and then into their mouths. Most adhesives in today's world have mold and mildew inhibitors in them and this is POISON. Children have also been known at the toddler stage to fall in five gallon buckets of water and drown. Razor blades, scissors and other tools can be deadly in young hands.
Young children are very seldom outside without close supervision so they are generally not a problem when we are doing outside work. However most people with young children have "childproofed" the inside of their homes. Toddlers are accustomed to crawling and doddering from one room to another in safety. When you are added to the mix with your tools and drops that can tangle and trip little feet what was once a safe area can become dangerous.
Less important to safety but very important to your installation is the air conditioning and the heat registers. The more harsh the climate the more important the heat and AC and especially it's circulation patterns. When you remove heat registers you remove the volume and directional controls of a very warm dry or cold dry air. This can be harmful you your wallcovering installation process especially when hanging dry method. It is also very annoying for the customer who is still trying to live in the rooms you are papering.
Fill a grocery bag with loosely crumpled newspaper and then fold and seal the top with two inch masking tape. Be sure this is full enough to fit tightly into the end of the heat/ac duct with out any danger of it falling down and out of reach. This is a great temporary air block that can be easily removed at night and replaced during the day and reused again on other jobs.
Cigarette or cigar smoking which is tolerated by customers when working outside painting should never be taken inside. You might want to mention the on your estimating sheet so the customer knows in advance you will be considerate of their home and property. This is important even to customers who smoke themselves...with this reassurance they will know they don't have to worry about damage to their property with burning butts or dirty ashtrays.
In the spring when you're getting set for the summer season all of the wallcovering may not come in or may for your customer's cash flow may not want it installed until the fall. This winter/summer mix can be used to help the customer and yourself with cash flow as well as convenience. This is where a very special line of products -- not even thought of in Mr. Naulta's day-- are wonderful. Tintable wallcovering undercoatings are a great "one thing solves two problems" product. You can paint the guest room pale yellow, little Billy's room soft pink, little Susie's room light blue (the times they are a changin') and they look very pleasant. Then next fall (or maybe the one after depending on their budget) when cash loosens up the walls are already primed specifically for wallcoverings and they ready to go.
This topic is a real tickler for me. What I have tried to do here is to share a few inventions and ideas with you for smoother and more profitable all round seasonal decorator. Remember we are the interior decorators. Interior DESIGNERS do the picking and choosing and interior decorators do the doing.
Don't forget holiday gift certificates for your labor are a great way to keep January and February work moving. Cash flow is usually slow after the holidays and if your work as been given as a gift during the holidays you will have plenty of work to do during the slowest months of the year.
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