My Typical Day

A typical day for a painter:

• 8am: Arrive at office to clock in and get work orders for the day
• 8:30am: Arrive at customer’s home and review what is being done on the job to make sure everyone is on the same page
• For exteriors, the next six hours might include:
  • Powerwashing the exterior of the home with an eye toward removing dirt and mildew without so much water pressure that it damages the substrate
  • Fixing broken shingles or replacing rotted wood on the home
  • Prepping the home by scraping loose paint and feathersanding the edges of the old paint
  • Priming the raw wood or spot priming the wood that has raw wood showing
  • Sampling paint for the customer – many clients leave the color choice to the last minute
  • Taking a trip to the paint store to gather paint – usually, the painter will err on the side of buying less paint upfront to see how far he/she can get the paint to go and buying more later if the house is extra “thirsty” and is using more paint than expected.
  • Spraying the exterior using a paint sprayer and back rolling the sprayed paint so it gets “pushed” into the substrate (wood/clapboard/stucco etc.)
  • Brush or roll painting detail areas like moldings and trim
  • Taking the customer around to see if the customer sees any areas that need touching up

Pros

• Lots of work available – there is a shortage of great painters so a painter usually has his/her choice of jobs
• Being able to work as an independent contractor or employee for a painting company – whichever they prefer – again, because of the shortage of good painters, the painters can choose which works for them
• Downtime in the winter – especially in the Northeast, painting is very seasonal. Because exteriors can only be painted March-October due to low temps (can’t paint in the cold) and wet weather (can’t paint in the rain or snow), the winters tend to be very slow so if a painter was smart, they could work a 9-month year, save their money for the winter and take the whole winter off.
• Customers are so happy with the final product. A painter is usually the last one to leave a renovation, so while the plumber and electrician do good work, a painter is the “finishing touch” on a renovation and gets a lot of the credit for the final outcome.

Cons

• Physical work – especially in the summertime when painters are on ladders in the hot sun, is a real “con.”
• Lack of prestige – being a painter doesn’t make for a great cocktail party conversation.

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