Did you discuss cleanup with him before you hired him? Who cleans up any future messes?

I'm just glad you handled it. Power washing before painting is gonna make it look good!

I just watched an all girls paint crew scrap and fill pocks with Dap.....then power wash....? This made NO sense. ALL the Dap came off. So if the power washing came first,,,,,? Good!

No, I didn't discuss clean up with him before hand. He's painted my house a couple times over the past 30+ years, so he's no stranger, and he always washes down the house first and scrapes where needed. I just didn't expect this much of a mess this time. Guess the old paint was really loose or he had the pressure washer on full blast. Like I said, maybe he was coming back to clean up, but he should have called if that was the plan. Getting it off the dirt is going to be the tough part. I tried a little, and it didn't come up very easily. Plus it was wet. Thank goodness the one side of the garage that faces my flower garden with the stone courtyard has Va.Creeper covering it so can't be painted or I would have had a heck of a mess on that stone!

Then later this afternoon it poured rain here, suppose to rain tomorrow night too. He waited this late in the season to start the job, hope it wasn't a mistake. First Spring was too wet, then summer too hot. But he's been a painter for years and years, he ought to know what he's doing. Let's hope for an "Indian Summer".

I remember when I bought my house in 1978, it hadn't been painted for a very long time, was grey and weathered. He used a lot of caulk! ha Then in subsequent years, mainly the Western and Southern sides of the house would need painting most, so I had him re-paint those. The rest of the house always looked pretty good, he uses an oil based primer.

Tradesmen can be very last minute at times. We had an extension built on which involved demolishing a small section of our house. The builder called the night before to let DH (who was alone as I was temporarily working 100km away) that he'd be starting demolition work the next morning. I think DH convinced him to give him an extra day as he had to move all the furniture out, including an oak sideboard, dining table, pantry cupboard, washer, dryer etc.

Then when I got back, he told me he'd be demolishing our toilet the next day. I had to scramble to get a port-a-loo delivered as we live in a small town and the suppliers are all 100km away. It took three days (during which I had to hold on and drive to the local public toilets every time I wanted to go :-( ) before we got the port-a-loo.

I think autumn is an ideal time to paint a house -- at least here, where temperatures are usually mild.

We had just such a 'snowstorm' a few years ago. In our case, someone who owned this house before us had used oil paint many years ago, so every time we had the house painted it would start to peel within a year or two. No one wanted to delve into the real reason this happened and do what what necessary to correct the problem. So when I found our last painter I made it clear that I only wanted him to take the job only if he could do it right and I must say, he did. He had just bought a very, very strong power washer and had his foreman do the job, so was quite surprised when he saw the result. But he hired a landscaper to do the clean-up and had him also lay some new soil in the garden beds--nice touch. Yes, I will find a stray paint chip now and then while gardening, but I do appreciate the fact that the paint on our house is still intact!

This morning things certainly look brighter out there. I'm so glad I went into a frenzy and cleaned it all up, and you know what? Even the paint chips in the dirt at the foundation seem to not look as terrifying. It rained hard in the early evening and possibly overnight. Perhaps the paint chips "melted" a bit? Maybe the ones in the grass would have too? There were some really big chips tho. I did sweep the garage steps and sidewalk this morning. But my mood is better too.

My painter is an experienced one. I think the "oil" he mentioned was oil primer on the bare wood areas. I thought oil paint was being phased out all together but haven't read anything lately about that. My house (school) is over 150yrs. old, as I said the paint on the Western and Southern sides peel the most and the quickest on account of being the brunt of the elements.

I'm also thinking of hiring someone to work along with me when it's time to do a final clean up of the area. All I need is someone who can use a leaf vac and a broom and has a stronger back. ha

No, oil based paint is still around. I use it for priming siding before it's had any paint on it. Alkyd oil based paint.