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Residential Painting contractors are generally quite familiar with the day to day operations of their own businesses. At times challenging situations come up where we need to improvise or ask our peers in the industry for coaching or advice on how best to approach abstract applications. Teaming up with other reputable contractors on large projects can be an excellent way to execute highly involved projects … to a point.
What happens when you bring 11 painting companies together for a total of 40 painters with the common goal of painting the interior and exterior of a 3500 square foot home, while under construction, in 5 days? I call it controlled chaos within the Hollywood title Extreme Makeover, Home Edition.
When I was asked if I would be interested in being a part of the Extreme Makeover project in Kirkland I was both surprised and excited. I signed on, after many questions, to do my part & help out with the project. Myself as well as what would end up being the original five other painting companies. A meeting was scheduled to go over the plans and scope of the project. I found myself getting nervous and intimidated when I thought of working side by side with other reputable and experienced company presidents. Though I have been in conversation and good relations with other contractors through local associations such as Painting and Decorating Contractors of America and Master Builders association, I had not had the opportunity or been exposed to working in the field with other painting contractors on the same project. This is a rare situation in the residential market for sure.
In our first meeting I met Jake & Beth with Gates Painting, Scott with Casa Bonita, Todd with Sound Renovation, and Sean with All Pro Painting. The initial meeting inspired each of us to take on the project with a new mindset and we quickly realized with the time constraints we were facing, the 20 painters we were bringing to the table was not going to be enough. I got on the phone and began calling many of my peers in the PDCA and we had another 6 companies come on board bringing another 20+ painters to the project. We were also putting in calls to Sherwin Williams in an effort to secure them as the paint supplier for the project. To begin our extreme measures I received a call from Craig with Sherwin Williams on Thursday just 3 days prior to the scheduled start date of the painting letting me know that they were on board. It was most interesting to see how much we were suddenly responsible for setting up what we needed for the project from materials to labor. I was under the expectation that the staff from the show would’ve had all of these things lined up in advance.
On Friday I went to the site to get an idea of what the project was going to be and was very surprised when I arrived to find a hole in the ground where we were to begin painting a house in just 48 hours.
The commotion in the neighborhood was astounding. There were RV’s, tents, generators, trucks, security personnel, etc. in front yards and back yards of the homes surrounding the house for a massive two blocks. It looked like a seen out of the movie E.T. I was sent on a mission to meet Mike, the paint coordinator for the show, and a mission it ended up becoming. After crossing paths multiple times without connecting for about 30 minutes, I finally caught him at “Paint World”, which I had no idea was going to be my base for the next 5 days. Mike is a very energetic and vibrant person and seemed to wear the Hollywood influence on his shoulders. He was excited to show me around and put his business aside to give me the grand tour of the site. As he removed his earpiece he informed me that he had 76 people in his ear at all times and was in constant communication with the designers, production team, and project leads and would be for the next 5 days. Mike took me to grab some food at the catering tent where all volunteers on the project would come to refuel with the magnitude of generously donated food and beverages. The Starbucks stand ran 24/7 and the masseuse tent provided much needed support for the thousands of bodies that were donating their time and labor on the project. As we moved on down the street I was fascinated at the coordination of trades lined up. As the excavation was occurring there were trades people standing by with form boards, rebar, cement trucks, along with hundreds of observers behind the cattle gates as I like to call them. We completed the tour with Mike’s clear intent to get me riled up and excited for the project. While it was an interesting site to see, it was also one of the busiest times in a painting contractors business with trying to complete all exterior projects prior to the rains settling in. I felt the strain on my time and warned the others that it may not be worth their time to hop on the shuttle up to the project.
I was unexpectedly asked by Mike to get some painters there right away. They were beginning to get the MDF millwork packages that were all pre-cut and labeled for each room of the hose, which, by the way, didn’t even have a foundation poured yet. Our team of painters was not scheduled to arrive until Sunday as the on line itinerary stated. We had hundreds of lineal feet of trim to pre-finish with almost every package needing to go a different color. I told Mike that I would do my best to get folks there and stepped off to finish a couple projects that afternoon in preparation to spend some long hours on the Extreme Project.
When I arrived on Saturday morning all of the interior and exterior bare-wood doors were stood up in a large tent known as paint world, ready to be prepped, primed and finished. Volunteers were already masking the windows on the doors along with all of the hardware. The number of volunteers on the project was astounding. I was told not to be doing the prep work myself, rather that we had plenty of people to take that on. At any given moment, I quickly found out, if we needed volunteers in paint world, you just say the word and 10 people would show up asking what they could do.
My next step was putting together the exterior paint order. I ended up putting together a massive order for the exterior palette comprised of 8 colors. We decided to go with a Woodscapes solid stain so that we would not have to do any priming and it also held the best capability for painting with moisture, which became imminent part of the project. The interior palette was comprised of 40 different colors and 4 different sheens. In questioning why we were working with 40 different colors when we had such a short time to produce the product, I was reaffirmed that “this is Extreme Makeover and there is a certain level of drama that goes along with the project. After the entire Job site is a set for a drama T.V. show.” I was also told that “if everything is going too smoothly you can expect some curve balls to be thrown at you by the production team in an effort to create drama for the show. Being an advocate for green building and efficiency in the workplace, this news did not land very well with me and I got my first taste of the Hollywood side of the project.
With showers and record rainfall over the weekend we were extremely short on space for pre-finishing the millwork packages and moving them into heated tents for curing. Our one original tent became a series of additions comprising of a great room split in half for two sprayers to be operating at the same time with different colors, 3 drying rooms, a stain grade room, and a tool storage room all built up on pallets with plywood over the top for flooring. I have never seen anything like it. We were constantly running propane heaters that actually drew in more moisture while at the same time generating heat. We did not have enough radiant heaters, so the propane was a must. We were of course working through the night, so we had a multitude of halogen lights set up. All electrical equipment was operating off of two portable power boxes that were being powered by a large commercial generator in front of the neighbors’ house.
After we were a good ways through our pre-finish packages and I had been sleeping at most 4 hours both of the previous nights, I got the news that the project was now about 20 hours behind schedule. I made the call to Jake, and the small army of painters was called to hold their position until further notice. The following day, our team showed up and began painting the exterior of the house while the siding was still going up, trim was being installed, drywall was being hung inside, the deck was being installed, construction of the waterfall and pool were taking place, foundation stone work was going in, and a multitude of other things. It is most nerve racking to be on a 32′ extension ladder with hundreds of people running around below you with large equipment and materials. I am amazed that more accidents didn’t happen. I remember one instance where I got up on the roof to communicate to Jake who was spraying out the soffits, I stood straddling the ridgeline and it felt like I was sitting on a square of Jell-O. There was so much movement going on both on & in the house that it was continuously wavering this way and that by what felt like could be an inch or two. We had a number of volunteers assisting with the project, some were skilled and experienced and others were not so skilled. There was one instance where a gal had a small chip brush and she was painting out the window trim on the 2nd story dormer. Paint was dribbling down the clear cedar shingles that were to stay clear and getting all over the roof. This was the first of many instances where I open heartedly had to ask people to find something else to do. I quickly learned that quality control was one of the main parts of my job. I should have been thinking about safety as well because on my way down the ladder with this gal’s paint I slipped on the muddy rung and landed on my back in the mud after falling about 6 feet. A well deserved wake-up call that I should not be on a ladder with such little sleep. After calming down from the fall I continued directing people in the right direction, making sure they new what to paint what color. Bellevue Paint Supply showed up with a large load of donated sundries and Jake immediately had them in volunteer’s hands working.
With about 25 painters on the exterior we completed a majority of the work in about 5 hours and immediately moved inside to begin applying the PVA prime coat to the smooth drywall where the drywall contractors were just mudding 3 hours prior. In many instances we were being pushed to break many important steps in the painting process. Spraying PVA over mud that is not completely dry is one of those very steps. The large, external commercial heaters and dehumidifiers that were donated could only dry things so quickly. The house was extremely humid at about 95 degrees with 100 people working frantically.
I come from a processes & procedures background where you don’t usually have chop saws, table saws, skill saws, tile saws, and drills running at the same time you are applying interior finish coatings, but this wasn’t your usual jobsite. When I started to hold painters back from working in certain areas of the house due to congestion, Mike began pushing us to move right over the top of other trades. I originally made the call to about 15 painters to stay clear of the 2nd story until the hardwoods were complete. I was quickly overridden and we began painting trim while being asked to move our foot so a piece of hardwood could go down and our hands so that another piece of casing could be nailed in. My favorite part was when a finish carpenter went to make a quick cut on his chop saw as I was walking behind the saw and I got a face full of saw dust. I put someone to a task who was laughing hysterically and stepped back noticing that he had no catch bag for his sawdust. He looked at me with a “so what” kind of smirk and I quickly took a garbage bag from underneath him took the roll of masking tape out of my pocket and taped a makeshift collector to his saw, his look changed quickly and I kept moving. At this point I realized I was operating completely on adrenaline and was taking the project on as more of an adventure than anything.
Things were moving extremely fast, thus I found myself becoming stationary in the dining room with two runners going a block away to paint world for needed supplies as the orders came in from painters. I had the plans in front of me with all of the specs and about 40 different colors piled up behind me. For a moment I would feel like I was accomplishing nothing and then there would be a flood of painters coming at me with wet brushes and cut buckets asking what next and what goes where. The adrenaline was a kick and I was impressed at my ability to stay focused and communicate clearly what needed to happen when and where. I learned to not stay clear of the other trades but to work on top of them, underneath them and through them. If someone was upset that you were in their space you just had to remind them what project they were on. A lot of standard jobsite courtesy rules were being broken and it was apparent in the mental state of some for about 4 hours. After that I noticed everyone started to go with it and laugh about it in realization that this was not their everyday jobsite. It became very apparent who the leaders were in the group so I began to hand off some responsibility allowing me to organize and call in another paint order at 8:30 at night as well as consult with the set designers on clearing up colors and finishes for the next phases.
Tuesday was the beginning of my long shift which we just explored. As we began to work into the night the house gradually quieted down and emptied out to the point of there being more like 30 people. It was like disembarking a bullet train and getting onto a motor coach. I ended up working alongside Mike on a lot of the fine finish work and decorative features, such as the metallic picture nook, and the pink accents in “Paiges’ room”, cleaning up cut-in lines, etc.
The next morning I found myself singing loudly while applying the stain to the front door. Hundreds of public viewers stood behind the cattle gates watching the unbelievable construction of this house, which at this point had really taken shape and was looking great. I would have to get off my ladder quickly to allow the camera crew and stars into the house. Even though some people were there for the thrill of being on the television set, I found myself despising the entire Hollywood aspect of the project and had to remind myself of the end result and the deserving single mother of 4 children. It was an educational experience filled with all kinds of emotion.
I finally reached a point at about 9:30 the following evening where I was way low on energy and felt my body shaking from sleep depravation. I was clearly delirious, covered in paint, and looking and feeling like a dope head when decided it would be a good time to head home. I am lucky that I wasn’t pulled over for drunk driving.
I arrived the next morning at about 8:30 and for the first time noticed that the house looked done and complete. Furniture was moved in, landscaping complete, just the finishing touches were being tackled. At about 9:30 as I was walking up to the house I was told that the house was now turned over to Hollywood and I could not get near it to do the final touch-ups that I had mentally noted the previous night. It was about this point where I grabbed my last coffee from the Starbucks stand along with a bagel, got my first and the last massage offered and mentally checked out of the project. The “reveal” was to take place any time between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm, however I felt it was better to imagine the Chapin families’ response than to actually watch the different takes prior to their arrival. What I experienced was real and I was not going to have that diminished by the shooting process.
Over all it was an unforgettable experience and one that I learned from. I played a bigger role than I am used to playing and have incorporated this into my business by stepping out of the field to build other’s careers and livelihoods while building my own. A family in need is no more as they live in a beautiful home crafted by hundreds of volunteers from our community.
It was an enriching experience that I would do again without Reality T.V. and with a paycheck. It is with encouragement that I recommend everyone to get involved in community projects and donate what you can, whether it’s your time or resources.
