voodoo
07-19-2013, 09:26 AM
I just recently moved from a modern inner city infill to a south community that contained houses built in the 80/90s. My wife wished to move to a larger house with a larger backyard for our now 2yr old.
As part of our home inspection we were notified that the original window frames needed to be repainted (for the windows that hadn’t been replaced yet) as well as some stucco repair needed to take place (which we could already visually see) and a new garage door and motor as they were on their last legs.
http://imageshack.us/a/img713/8741/ufzp.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/421/40jm.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img163/8766/hhai.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img843/3082/dwit.jpg
Being that the house needed these stucco repairs it was an ideal time to repaint the entire exterior of the house in a fresh modern colour, as you can see from the pics below it was a horrible pastel pink/orange colour (I guess these were the “in” colours in the 80/90s)
http://imageshack.us/a/img153/5735/6rjv.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img835/4888/kn99.jpg
After receiving a couple of quotes, 1 from some random company my wife found and 1 from the painter that I have used to paint the entire interiors of my previous 2 homes, I thought I would check on beyond and see if they had any recommendations. After much searching I came across a thread where someone asked a similar question. The thread highly recommended legacy exteriors and that the owner was a guy on beyond.
Always willing to listen to what beyond has to offer/recommend I tried to PM InRich however his inbox was full. (Which I took as either his business was great and he had lots of PMs regarding quotes, or that he was brutal and people were filling his inbox with complaints. Lol) That said, I decided to email the company directly from its website and just let them know that I was contacting them from beyond.ca. After about a week I get a phone call from InRich asking what work we wanted done and if he could come over for about 45-60mins to go through everything. Now I should point out that I was hesitant when I heard that, (the last 2 quotes were over and done in about 10mins) I was assuming the worse and that I would get some kind of brutal sales pitch. I reluctntly agreed and set a time with my InRich, where my wife and myself could listen to him (what I believed to be at the time would be his sales pitch) and to review a quote.
A couple of days later InRich came over walked round the property took measurements/notes and then asked to come in. He sat us down and started to talk about all the great reasons to go with his company, he gave us a double sided paper full of references stating that we could anyone of them and they would all give a glowing review or he would paint our house for free. He said that this reference list was just a small selection of people who he had completed work for.
After that we started to talk about our house, what we wanted done, what he would recommend and what our budget is. InRich walked us through what he thought we should do with the exterior of the house. He noted that we would just be wasting our time with painting the window frames as they would just end up like they currently are and suggest that we clad them in metal instead (to match the windows that had already been replaced). Not really understanding what the cladding would do we were hesitant to agree with this. Secondly he suggested that we refinish the front door as the current condition wasn’t the greatest. Next he recommended the stucco repairs (the ones we already knew about as well as ones we hadn’t seen noticed) and finally he talked about the different types of exterior paint and what he would recommend.
Not wanting to sign anything right there and then (mainly because InRich had just overwhelmed us with information overload) we agreed to meet the next day and he would give us a tour of homes he had done previously, as well as some as his competitors (some good and some bad). He did warn us however, that almost every client that goes on this tour signs on the dotted line right there and then.
The following day my wife and I met InRich at the location agreed upon. Upon pulling up I noticed that He was sitting in his corvette (when yesterday he showed up in his X5) wondering how in the hell 3 people were going to fit in a 2 seater car. InRich informed us that his X5 had unexpectedly gone in for service and would it be ok if I drove, I agreed to drive and off we went. His tour lasts about 45-60mins and we saw what felt like were hundreds of homes. We saw homes from all walks of life, he showed us some homes he had painted many years ago as well as ones that were freshly painted (or even currently being worked on). He showed us some bad paint jobs of his competitors as well as some good ones and what things to look out for when looking for a company to paint your house. During the tour we discussed what house colours we liked and what colours we didn’t like and what colour range we envisioned our home being in.
Some houses we just drove by and some houses we actually got out of the car and walked around the homes, inspecting his work, feeling the paint, talking about the longevity and damage to the paint on the homes (if there was any). He showed us houses that he had painted in latex, semi elastomeric and full elastomeric and discussed the pros and cons of each type of paint. We finally came across a home that was in the middle of having its windows cladded (the guy was actually working there when we pulled up) instantly we were sold, the cladding looks a million times better than painted wood (as well as being maintenance free).
After the tour, we discussed with InRich what we had seen, he answered any questions that we still had and we discussed the work that we wished to have done and what budget we had to work within, as we didn’t have the budget to do everything that he suggested. After some tweaking to the work and costs we agreed upon a price and signed the contract (on a side note I will point out that his contract showed a TOTAL FINAL PRICE and no hidden fees. Lol pun intended at his g/f buying her ford escape. Lol) he gave us a tentative date of when the painting would start (based on weather, window cladder and stucco repair timing etc) we cut InRich a deposit cheque and went off on our merry way.
InRich had informed us that the window cladding guy would show up as soon as he was finished the current job he was working on (the one we saw him working at). When we met the window cladder at his current job, he gave us the colours he could get the cladding in and told us to go home and pick a colour. Now I should mention that he doesn’t have all the colours under the sun, but we did find a colour that almost matched our new windows that had been replaced. Due to the location of where the old windows being cladded, it wasn’t the end of the world that the colour didn’t match perfectly. (It was very had to tell side by side that the colour was off, you would need to be looking for it to notice)
http://imageshack.us/a/img839/5233/v7rs.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img43/1040/3vze.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img15/7879/ca7f.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img600/4007/ywpf.jpg
To our surprise the window cladding guy showed up to our house 2 days later. He was super friendly super professional and got to work. I was quite surprised when I saw that he just buys sheets of the coloured metal and then shapes/molds/cuts them to fit your window perfectly. To top it off, he even has coloured matched caulking (this was a nice touch I thought as I just assumed it would have been clear caulking) to seal the window frames with. The coloured caulking just makes it look much more clean and seemless. The window cladding guy in total was at our house for about 2 or 3 days. He did such a great job that my next door neighbors recruited him to come do every single window at their houses (theirs were all original windows)
I WILL INSERT THE AFTER WINDOW PICS HERE, AS THEY ARE ON MY DSLR
but here is a pic of the garage door cladded
http://imageshack.us/a/img109/4318/iv5s.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img12/9526/2r1e.jpg
After the window cladder guy had finished I gave the stucco repair guy a call to come give a quote and start work. (I should point out that InRich’s company doesn’t physically do the stucco repairs, but he got me in contact with the guy that he always uses. It took a few days for the stucco repair guy to come out (as he lives in Cochrane and was working on a job out there) when he finally come out he gave us a reasonable quote (as we had already had 2 stucco repair quotes done, so that we could negotiate on the home price) and said that he would start work the following day. Well work didn’t start away due to the weather (it did rain a lot in June) finally when the weather cooperated enough the guy came out and started the work. Now I never saw this guy at all as he did all the work while I was at work. but he came and removed the old stucco sections that needed repairing, and did the first scratch coat, then he came back a week or so later and finished up the job.
http://imageshack.us/a/img24/2036/bft7.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img843/6020/0jxd.jpg
I WILL INSERT THE OTHER STUCCO REPAIR PICS HERE, AS THEY ARE ON MY DSLR
Now came time for the exciting part, InRich had told us to go and pick a colour for the house and give him the colour code, or he could come help us pick one out. We called our interior decorator (I had used her on our too previous homes to select interior colours with) she came out and we spent about 1hr flip-flopping over colour choices. Eventually we came to one and I sent it to InRich. He told me he thought it looked too dark and would come over with a colour swatch and help us look again. As soon as he saw the colour he said it would be too dark and that we should pick something else. He went through his colour deck and pulled out about 4 colours that were similar to our original but lighter shades. After about 5 mins of looking InRich, my wife and I decided on the new colour that we were going to use. (We were both a bit nervous as it was lighter than we originally wanted, but at this point we trusted InRich’s judgment)
As part of our home inspection we were notified that the original window frames needed to be repainted (for the windows that hadn’t been replaced yet) as well as some stucco repair needed to take place (which we could already visually see) and a new garage door and motor as they were on their last legs.
http://imageshack.us/a/img713/8741/ufzp.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/421/40jm.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img163/8766/hhai.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img843/3082/dwit.jpg
Being that the house needed these stucco repairs it was an ideal time to repaint the entire exterior of the house in a fresh modern colour, as you can see from the pics below it was a horrible pastel pink/orange colour (I guess these were the “in” colours in the 80/90s)
http://imageshack.us/a/img153/5735/6rjv.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img835/4888/kn99.jpg
After receiving a couple of quotes, 1 from some random company my wife found and 1 from the painter that I have used to paint the entire interiors of my previous 2 homes, I thought I would check on beyond and see if they had any recommendations. After much searching I came across a thread where someone asked a similar question. The thread highly recommended legacy exteriors and that the owner was a guy on beyond.
Always willing to listen to what beyond has to offer/recommend I tried to PM InRich however his inbox was full. (Which I took as either his business was great and he had lots of PMs regarding quotes, or that he was brutal and people were filling his inbox with complaints. Lol) That said, I decided to email the company directly from its website and just let them know that I was contacting them from beyond.ca. After about a week I get a phone call from InRich asking what work we wanted done and if he could come over for about 45-60mins to go through everything. Now I should point out that I was hesitant when I heard that, (the last 2 quotes were over and done in about 10mins) I was assuming the worse and that I would get some kind of brutal sales pitch. I reluctntly agreed and set a time with my InRich, where my wife and myself could listen to him (what I believed to be at the time would be his sales pitch) and to review a quote.
A couple of days later InRich came over walked round the property took measurements/notes and then asked to come in. He sat us down and started to talk about all the great reasons to go with his company, he gave us a double sided paper full of references stating that we could anyone of them and they would all give a glowing review or he would paint our house for free. He said that this reference list was just a small selection of people who he had completed work for.
After that we started to talk about our house, what we wanted done, what he would recommend and what our budget is. InRich walked us through what he thought we should do with the exterior of the house. He noted that we would just be wasting our time with painting the window frames as they would just end up like they currently are and suggest that we clad them in metal instead (to match the windows that had already been replaced). Not really understanding what the cladding would do we were hesitant to agree with this. Secondly he suggested that we refinish the front door as the current condition wasn’t the greatest. Next he recommended the stucco repairs (the ones we already knew about as well as ones we hadn’t seen noticed) and finally he talked about the different types of exterior paint and what he would recommend.
Not wanting to sign anything right there and then (mainly because InRich had just overwhelmed us with information overload) we agreed to meet the next day and he would give us a tour of homes he had done previously, as well as some as his competitors (some good and some bad). He did warn us however, that almost every client that goes on this tour signs on the dotted line right there and then.
The following day my wife and I met InRich at the location agreed upon. Upon pulling up I noticed that He was sitting in his corvette (when yesterday he showed up in his X5) wondering how in the hell 3 people were going to fit in a 2 seater car. InRich informed us that his X5 had unexpectedly gone in for service and would it be ok if I drove, I agreed to drive and off we went. His tour lasts about 45-60mins and we saw what felt like were hundreds of homes. We saw homes from all walks of life, he showed us some homes he had painted many years ago as well as ones that were freshly painted (or even currently being worked on). He showed us some bad paint jobs of his competitors as well as some good ones and what things to look out for when looking for a company to paint your house. During the tour we discussed what house colours we liked and what colours we didn’t like and what colour range we envisioned our home being in.
Some houses we just drove by and some houses we actually got out of the car and walked around the homes, inspecting his work, feeling the paint, talking about the longevity and damage to the paint on the homes (if there was any). He showed us houses that he had painted in latex, semi elastomeric and full elastomeric and discussed the pros and cons of each type of paint. We finally came across a home that was in the middle of having its windows cladded (the guy was actually working there when we pulled up) instantly we were sold, the cladding looks a million times better than painted wood (as well as being maintenance free).
After the tour, we discussed with InRich what we had seen, he answered any questions that we still had and we discussed the work that we wished to have done and what budget we had to work within, as we didn’t have the budget to do everything that he suggested. After some tweaking to the work and costs we agreed upon a price and signed the contract (on a side note I will point out that his contract showed a TOTAL FINAL PRICE and no hidden fees. Lol pun intended at his g/f buying her ford escape. Lol) he gave us a tentative date of when the painting would start (based on weather, window cladder and stucco repair timing etc) we cut InRich a deposit cheque and went off on our merry way.
InRich had informed us that the window cladding guy would show up as soon as he was finished the current job he was working on (the one we saw him working at). When we met the window cladder at his current job, he gave us the colours he could get the cladding in and told us to go home and pick a colour. Now I should mention that he doesn’t have all the colours under the sun, but we did find a colour that almost matched our new windows that had been replaced. Due to the location of where the old windows being cladded, it wasn’t the end of the world that the colour didn’t match perfectly. (It was very had to tell side by side that the colour was off, you would need to be looking for it to notice)
http://imageshack.us/a/img839/5233/v7rs.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img43/1040/3vze.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img15/7879/ca7f.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img600/4007/ywpf.jpg
To our surprise the window cladding guy showed up to our house 2 days later. He was super friendly super professional and got to work. I was quite surprised when I saw that he just buys sheets of the coloured metal and then shapes/molds/cuts them to fit your window perfectly. To top it off, he even has coloured matched caulking (this was a nice touch I thought as I just assumed it would have been clear caulking) to seal the window frames with. The coloured caulking just makes it look much more clean and seemless. The window cladding guy in total was at our house for about 2 or 3 days. He did such a great job that my next door neighbors recruited him to come do every single window at their houses (theirs were all original windows)
I WILL INSERT THE AFTER WINDOW PICS HERE, AS THEY ARE ON MY DSLR
but here is a pic of the garage door cladded
http://imageshack.us/a/img109/4318/iv5s.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img12/9526/2r1e.jpg
After the window cladder guy had finished I gave the stucco repair guy a call to come give a quote and start work. (I should point out that InRich’s company doesn’t physically do the stucco repairs, but he got me in contact with the guy that he always uses. It took a few days for the stucco repair guy to come out (as he lives in Cochrane and was working on a job out there) when he finally come out he gave us a reasonable quote (as we had already had 2 stucco repair quotes done, so that we could negotiate on the home price) and said that he would start work the following day. Well work didn’t start away due to the weather (it did rain a lot in June) finally when the weather cooperated enough the guy came out and started the work. Now I never saw this guy at all as he did all the work while I was at work. but he came and removed the old stucco sections that needed repairing, and did the first scratch coat, then he came back a week or so later and finished up the job.
http://imageshack.us/a/img24/2036/bft7.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img843/6020/0jxd.jpg
I WILL INSERT THE OTHER STUCCO REPAIR PICS HERE, AS THEY ARE ON MY DSLR
Now came time for the exciting part, InRich had told us to go and pick a colour for the house and give him the colour code, or he could come help us pick one out. We called our interior decorator (I had used her on our too previous homes to select interior colours with) she came out and we spent about 1hr flip-flopping over colour choices. Eventually we came to one and I sent it to InRich. He told me he thought it looked too dark and would come over with a colour swatch and help us look again. As soon as he saw the colour he said it would be too dark and that we should pick something else. He went through his colour deck and pulled out about 4 colours that were similar to our original but lighter shades. After about 5 mins of looking InRich, my wife and I decided on the new colour that we were going to use. (We were both a bit nervous as it was lighter than we originally wanted, but at this point we trusted InRich’s judgment)