Yesterday, I returned home to find the interior of the house covered in a fine coating of paint dust.  And I am not happy.

Yesterday, the painters returned to repaint the main floor ceiling for the fifth time.  The original paint job was beautiful.  The drywallers had done a careful job with the ceiling above the kitchen and diningroom, even going as far as to bring lights to check that the finish did not show any blemishes under light at a glancing angle.  The painters had then come in and painted and the ceiling was flawless. 

Unfortunately, as the house neared completion and we contemplated hanging a chandelier in the diningroom, we realized that the electrical box for the chandelier was not in the correct location.  So it had to be moved over one joist.  And in order to move it, they had to rip out some drywall and then patch it afterward.  The electrical and drywall work went quite smoothly.  However, the painting did not work out. 

The first time they painted the patched area, they painted an area just larger than the patch and you could see exactly where they stopped painting. 

The second time they painted the patched area, they painted a large circular area that included the patch and you could see exactly where they stopped painting.

At this point they decided that the paint was the wrong color, even though they were using paint out of the can they originally used to paint the ceiling.  The painters thought maybe a dirty brush had inadvertently been used at some point because even just a minor amount of dirt or the wrong color paint can taint an entire can of paint.

The third time they painted the patched area, they used a fresh can of paint and painted a large rectangular area that included the patch and the large circular area of the second paint and you could see exactly where they stopped painting.

At this point, the painters were getting very annoyed (not as annoyed as me) so they decided to paint the entire diningroom ceiling. 

The fourth time they painted the patched area, they used a fresh can of paint and painted the entire dining room ceiling and this time, I could see each stroke of the roller.

When I complained again, the painters blamed the Benjamin Moore paint as being low quality.  Well, thanks for that guys.  You might have wanted to mention that before we used it in the ENTIRE house!  But they were going to paint it again. 

The fifth time they painted the ceiling, they elected to paint the entire ceiling area of the main floor and to use another brand of paint with a color match for the original ceiling color.  This time, I can still see the roller marks and now I can also see the difference in paint around the ceiling mounted speakers which the painters (I am thinking) just decided to paint around instead of masking off carefully.

So here we are having had the painters paint the ceiling five times to try to cover up the patch in the ceiling and it still is unacceptable.  However, I am unwilling to have the painters return to try to fix it for two reasons:

1) they have had multiple chances to make the ceiling look like it did before and they have not been successful so I am losing faith that they will ever be able to make it look like it did and

2) as I mentioned before, I returned yesterday to find the interior of the house covered in a fine layer of paint dust.  I do not know how the paint dust came to be.  I thought they were painting with rollers, not spray painting.  But either way, it looks like the painters shook out their tarps inside the house because there is paint dust on the floor of the main floor and upstairs, there is paint dust on the wood furniture, on the couch and armchairs, and on the stereo equipment.  I can clean it all up, and I will, but it is very frustrating to have to.  Also, the stereo equipment is quite fragile so I hope that the paint dust has not compromised the speakers or the hifi. 

So I introduced today's blog with the fact that next week I will be ending it - our contract with the contractor, that is.  I do not want the contractors in our house anymore.  There are presently four things left on the punch list of which only one really requires the contractor.  I will just take care of the rest myself as I am sick of having contractors in the house.  Next week I will email the contractor and let him know, but before I email him, I need to calm down a bit.