Fall - Timing is Everything

On the Outer Banks, fall is typically a time anticipated by sportsmen and anglers worldwide. For home owners, real estate professionals, and property managers, fall is the time to plan your improvements and execute property maintenance programs in preparation for the upcoming summer rental season. 

As most of us on the Outer Banks know, this area can try the patience of a saint when it comes to getting required maintenance work done (or any other work for that matter). There is a pervasive, relaxed work ethic that translates into unreturned phone calls and eventually frustration on the part of anyone wanting work performed.

Consider using a reliable, full-service painting company that offers a maintenance program. Dealing with fewer contractors leaves less room for errors and should provide you with more personalized service.

You may be surprised at how versatile a professional painting contractor can be in the scope of services offered. This can complement the services offered by your rental company and in most cases provide you with a much more complete and professional interior and exterior maintenance package.

With any job there is a logical starting point. With yearly maintenance, exterior cleaning and power washing will provide great bang for your buck.

Once the house has been cleaned, you can begin prioritizing what needs to be done in order of importance and in accordance with your budget. Often, cleaning is all that is needed to make the outside of your property look fresh and suitable for guests, but certainly this process can reveal latent problems.

While cleaning the house, your professional should look for (and take note of) rotten siding, missing roof shingles, bad caulking, peeling paint, broken windows, and other such problems. This is the best time to have these problems reported to you so that they can be dealt with in an effective and timely manner. This needs to be on the top of your to-do list. While these items may seem minor, they almost always lead to more costly repairs if ignored.

You are best served to use a painting contractor with the skills to tackle these problems. Your ideal painting contractor should be able to replace siding, repair wood rot per building code, replace windows and flashing, repair drywall, and repair decks and rails.

What about the interior of your home? The most misunderstood issue that we address each year on the interior of homes is in the area of touch-up versus repainting.

You should understand that unless you know the exact product and color that was used in the painting of your interior, it’s not likely that you will be able to touch it up flawlessly. With interior touch-up, the end result should be that you cannot see where touch-up was performed.  

A good painting contractor should also keep extensive records for you so that you’re not guessing every year when it’s time to do interior touch-up painting.

Call us today and we can review your property and suggest a maintenance program that addresses your painting and carpentry needs. Remember that timing is everything and any good contractor will likely be fully booked in the spring, so don’t wait to take care of your maintenance, construction, and painting needs.