How to Fix the Mess Left by a Bad Painting Contractor

Bad painting contractors are a nightmare, ruining people’s impression of good, legitimate contractors. So, it’s essential to know how to fix the mess left by a bad painting contractor!

Assess what you have to work on

Step one of how to fix the mess left by a bad painting contractor is always damage assessment. After all, trying to just start without a plan could very well result in just as many mistakes. Have they left behind an absolute mess? Have they done a relatively good job in some rooms, or will everything need to be redone? Once you have the answers to these questions and you’ve walked through the home or rooms you’ll be working on, you can start making an actual plan of action. Due diligence is the only way you’ll improve as a painter!

Take the time to clean everything up

Here’s the thing about bad painting contractors: they typically leave a lot of trash and messes behind. And we don’t mean just in how they’ve painted home but in literal trash and dirt strewn on floors. Often, they don’t even bother to remove the tape from walls properly, so you’ll see bits of it stuck on random surfaces. So, to create a proper work environment, that needs to be cleaned up! Doubly so if the job is going to take a while and you need a place to store your supplies while you work. As the storage experts from triple7movers.com point out, if you leave a mess in your storage room, it’s very easy to make mistakes and spills when you go to fetch supplies!

Eliminate all the paint bubbles you can spot first

An important next step is getting rid of paint bubbles. Paint bubbles occur between the top layers of pain and the undercoat if they do not adequately adhere to each other. Unfortunately, before you tackle the removal of the bubbles themselves, you must find out why they happened. Was the paint the previous contractor used too wet? Or was the problem instead the opposite? What about the walls themselves? Perhaps it was an issue with a leak within the wall? If you don’t figure out the underlying cause, the problem will just repeat. Once you have it figured out, you can continue by scraping off the bad paint layers.

Work on sanding out uneven or wrinkled areas

Runs, drips, and wrinkles all ruin the evenness of a paint job, and all occur when a painting contractor is careless in their work. They are all a result of either using too much paint or watering it down too much. The results are rather ugly walls with plenty of faults that stand out. It doesn’t look bad, either, but it can make it impossible to line up shelving or furniture right up against a wall because they ‘stick out.’ Thankfully, sanding down the troublesome spots works rather well, and it’s not too hard!

Renew the tape lines

No one, and we do mean absolutely no one, likes to deal with paint smears where they’re not supposed to be. This is why responsible painting contractors use tape lines to mark out parts of the wall, typically the edges and around windows, outlets, and light switches, where the paint should never get. Unfortunately, bad painting contractors are not nearly as careful. Now, if you want to build a stronger relationship with your customers, you need to make sure not to repeat their mistakes. 

Prime the walls for your work

You need to do two things to ensure a smooth and pretty layer of paint sticks to the walls properly. First, the walls are not dirty, and nothing will get caught under the paint. Second, even if their current surface is oily, the walls can properly accept the water-based paint you are likely using. In order to do both, step number one is constantly wiping down and carefully cleaning the walls. If they are oily, you should make sure to use soapy water. Rinse, let the walls dry before lightly sanding them, and apply a bonding primer that enables the paint to adhere strongly. Not doing this is also one of the mistakes to avoid when starting a painting business.

Fix the paint job itself

The final step is to do an excellent job of painting the walls yourself! If you’ve followed all the previous steps, you have the perfect ‘canvases’ to work with. So, as long as you apply yourself properly, things will turn out well!

For the sake of satisfied customers

With our guide on how to fix the mess left by a bad painting contractor, you’ll be able to manage. However, always remember that the prep before painting is almost more important than the painting itself. Without it, you’ll not be able to do a good job.