From Quote to Kickoff: Exterior Painting a Point Richmond Waterfront Home

Hello, I'm Chad with Cutting Edge Painting. Today I want to walk you through a project we recently completed in Point Richmond, California — and give you a look at exactly how we work from the very first conversation to the moment we break ground.

The first step of our process is scheduling a convenient time for the homeowner to come by so I can take a look at what their project needs are. Once we walk around the premises and talk through what they're looking for, I make all my notes, then sit down and produce a quote. I send it over to the homeowner so they can review it, make sure everything is accounted for, and if agreeable, we continue on to schedule the work.

For this particular blog series, I'm going to focus on a full exterior painting job of an East Bay Area waterfront home.

A House Above the Water

This house is located in Point Richmond, and it sits above water on three of its sides. Two of those sides have either a deck or a walkway, which gives us access to put up ladders and reach the taller parts of the house. But one side has no walkway, no deck, and no ground of any kind for us to stabilize a ladder.

So I subcontracted a scaffolding company to come out and give us a quote for what it would cost to install scaffolding along that side.

Erecting the Scaffolding

Once that was arranged, the scaffold company came in and erected the scaffolding. On this house, they had to trudge into the water and build it from the bottom all the way to the top. It was amazing to witness — and very clever how they built and balanced it for weight by attaching it to the back of the house. Scaffolding typically bolts into sturdy parts of the house in order to stay stable as we work from it.

With the scaffolding complete, we were ready to begin our process.

In Part 2, we'll walk through the prep work that goes into a waterfront exterior in the SF Bay Area — from pressure washing off salt buildup to repairing water-damaged wood before a single drop of paint is applied.