How often to repaint?
How often to repaint interior is on an as needed basis.
How often to repaint exterior is also on an as needed basis. Yearly inspections are what’s key to determine the need. A house in direct sunlight will need to be repainted more that one in the shade. A house with lots of tree coverage is vulnerable to mildew. They key is doing a yearly inspection to catch any problems early. A lot of times what happens is that you can have a hairline crack in your paint where water gets in behind the paint and causes the wood to rot. If you don’t inspect yearly, you wouldn’t notice these hairline cracks 15 feet up the exterior wall. An example from our experience is when a $2000 job turned into a $40,000 job because the columns and the soffit were completely rotten. Moisture had leaked through the yankee gutters. To fix it, our crew had to rip off the rubber roof. Before all was said and done, several different companies had to be brought in to make the necessary repairs. Homeowners need to conduct yearly inspections and do the needed maintenance immediately. This actually saves money in the long run.
Tips on picking paint colors (internal vs. external)
We don’t only do what the owner asks, but we also offer creative solutions. For example, we had a customer with a particular color scheme in mind. After considering all his goals for the look, the feel, and a few other factors, Brandon suggested an entirely different color scheme. Initially, this customer pushed back but in the end, they loved the finished product and were very pleased with the color scheme suggested by Brandon!
F&M will help with tips on picking paint colors. There’s really no rhyme or reason to picking paint colors. We are confident in our ability to help our customers pick the right colors, as our track record of pleased customers shows.
What is your main area of expertise?
Without stating the obvious, painting of course though we’re pretty diverse: Commercial, residential, interior, exterior, staining, wallpaper, kitchen cabinets (even rehanging them), epoxy floors, hanging and finishing drywall, carpentry (like crown molding and stair railings), and power washing. One of the reason for 20 years, we’ve been “kicking butt” is that we’re pretty diverse.
When we do new homes, people ask if they do other painting. Emphatically, yes!
What products do you use?
The products we use are Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, and Pittsburgh Paint.
What is included in the cost?
After the free estimate, what is included in the cost is simply labor and materials.
How long do the jobs take?
It varies!
For residential customers, we usually do not stick more than 2 - 3 people on a given job. For most jobs, we are in and out in 2-3 days. This of course can vary depending on the number of workers on the job. We break everything down into production hours and typically tell the homeowners how long things are going to take up front. Most customers don’t like their whole house being torn up simultaneously, so to make it easier for the customer, we will stretch the work over a longer time period to accommodate. We give daily updates via a phone call or even talking to the homeowner on site at the end of the day. We ensure that our customers are up-to-date on the progress of each project.
Can I be onsite during a job?
Yes.
Do you offer any guarantees or warranties?
We have a 2 year warranty which is more than most companies will offer. We warranty labor and the products are warrantied by the manufacturer. And at the end of day, we truly want the customer to be happy.
How many coats of paint will be laid down?
The minimum number of coats to be laid down is 2 coats. Sometimes with dark colors, you get into 3 coats. Deep based paint (E.g. Dark red, dark green) have less solids and more pigment, which leads to a thinner paint. White base has more solids because there’s less pigment in the mix. The new organic paints that have come out in the last several years offer improved ability in the dark colors to cover and are less likely to need 3 coats.
In Brandon’s words, this one coat process that places like Home Depot offer just “doesn’t cut the mustard.” You have to have a certain amount of paint build thickness in order for two things to effectively take place: bonding and longevity. We understand this, and trust us, we’re not going to skimp.
Do you have any crazy snowmobiling stories?
Born in Potter county, Brandon grew up snowmobiling and 4-wheeling. He still loves snowmobiling! He mostly rides in New York at Tug Hill, north of Syracuse. The photo on team page is from a trip out to the continental divide in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The fastest I’ve ever gone on a sled is 112 mph though the new machines would crush that,” says Brandon. “I get my real thrill from going 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds. That’s where we have a lot of fun! My friend Derry is a crazy rider... He’ll start racing, bumping into you with his sled, pass you on blind corners… This one trip, we were riding like crazy, scraping ice off our face masks, barely able to see, and sweating inside our jackets because we moving so fast. After we parked the snowmobiles, cleaned up and sat down for dinner, I said to the guys, ‘I don’t know about you, but that scared the crap out of me.’ Derry and his brother just laughed.”
How did F&M Painting Get Started?
Brandon has been painting since he was 10 years old. His father who was a school teacher would do painting projects in his summers off. So as kids, Brandon and his siblings would help their dad paint. When Brandon got to high school, he had a construction contractor approach him at an awards ceremony and tell him, “If you work as hard for me as you do on basketball court, you’ll do well.” He practiced multiple construction disciplines while working for him, which included painting as well. After graduating college in 1995, he and his brother Darren started a painting company. From there, Brandon moved to Lancaster to look for a teaching job. In the interim of his job search, he painted, partnering up with another guy who was also in the process of becoming a teacher. From there this painting initiative grew and grew, and Brandon never got that teaching job. Instead, he launched a small painting company. That was September 1996. The following year, Brandon married Beth and ran F&M’s painting operations out of the basement and single-bay garage of their 700 square foot house. He eventually bought did buy a shop. In 20+ years since its founding, their little start-up went from grew to $150,000 to over $1 million in annual sales. In Brandon’s words, “We went from zero to 100 miles an hour.” F&M now operates as a formidable leader in the industry and in Lancaster was nominated as one of the top painting companies. We didn’t even know people were voting!