Friday 4 August 2023

A Night On The Tiles




Well we´ve all had a few of those I can imagine and great fun they are to, until the hangover sets in the next day that is.

These days my experience with tiles is when I am on the roofs of the clients houses and so often I have to bring to their attention (if they don´t allready know that is) that the mortar that was originally used to secure the tiles to the roof and to one another has decayed with age and as a result many of the tiles have either been blown off the roof or have at least been turned over leaving the substrate underneath unprotected.

Recently therefore we have added the renewing of the mortar to out portfolio of services offered to the clients.

Don´t they look smart?
 

Commercial Premises


As we mostly paint the exteriors of houses and the customers will invariably choose white or cream/biege type colours we very rarely get the opportunity to work with bright colours so you can imagine how pleased we were when the good people at Securistore asked us to paint the rear elevation of their premises in Ondara business park and as you can see from the photos and videos included the colours sure weren´t bland!!

This was the first time we had tackled a project like this but by following our normal procedure of preparation and choice of materials we acheived a first class finish.

So much so that every time my partner and I drive past it on the autopista I always shout out "hey look I painted that" which as you can imagine she is begining to find a bit tedious.

Think she might hit me next time😟


Saturday 1 July 2023

A Picture Paints (a thousand words)!

 

I apologise for extremely tenuous link between painting and this picture. 

It´s just such a lovely photo that I thought it deserved to be published on the net somewhere.

This was taken by my partner when we lived in front of the beach and sharp eyed observers will note that the sun is rising to the right of the Peñon which means that the picture was taken on one of the shortest days of the year in December when the sun breaks the horizon at this spot in the morning. 

The rest of the year of course its increasingly rising to the left and setting way over to the right past Altea.

All rights of use and of publication reserved by the author so I don´t want to see it being used in a calendar or other web site. 😉

Tuesday 6 December 2022

Height No Problem







Many homeowners on the Costa Blanca who have properties that include extremely high walls round swim pools or general under build areas can be put off commissioning a house paint contract for the fear of the costs of scaffold or cherry pickers needed to access these areas.
Working now with a team of absailers (see photos above) The Villa Painters can now offer extremely competitive prices for this type of work and therefore no one should be nervous about asking for a quotation as we are sure that you will be pleasantly surprised at how affordable a top quality and fully guaranteed house paint can be.


Monday 28 November 2022

Scrubbing the Decks

Everyone loves the luxurious look and texture of a wooden decking swim pool or patio surround it adds a touch of class to an area which can otherwise have an appearance which leaves a lot to be desired.

However many people are discouraged from installing these as they fear there will be a lot of maintenance involved and whereas it is undoubtedly true that wooden decking will require more care than for example ceramic tiles, if the maintenance is carried out on a regular schedule and not left for years until it presents a costly and time consuming problem there is no reason why the upkeep of decking should be any disincentive to its installation.



The trick to maintaining the appearance of wooden decking (as with other items such as wooden window frames and venetian windows and doors) is to establish a regular upkeep programe on a bi or tri yearly intervals and to employ a professional and experienced paint company such as The Villa Painters  to carry out a thorough renovation of firstly removing all old and flaking wood treatment and then applying two coats of a quality wood treatment such as Jotun Trebit.

The fortunate home owners can then enjoy their beautiful wooden decking and of course the admiring comments of friends and neighbours.

Thursday 27 October 2022

Before and After

It´s not always easy to take good photographs that illustrate the "Before and After" effect of our administrations of render and paint and the improvement in appearance to the property thereof, until that is we worked at the "Coelho" place on Monte Pego. Picture right...

Bought by mum Coelho as investment in the very early eighties when it was one of the very first houses in the area (clever mum!) her sons William and Kurt recently contracted me (clever sons!) to undertake the renewal of all of the paint work of the property to coincide with the other improvements and renovations they were undertaking.

They told me that together with a friend, they had painted the house themselves "about ten years ago" which news led me to the conclusion that they must have spent a fortune on all the Tipp-Ex they used to coat the house with because that´s what it appeared they had used when we started to wash the walls down with the high pressure machine that we use. The coating flew off in enough bits and pieces to fill four large bin bags with and the water was running white with the chalk that had been in paint to thicken it up. Also of course we removed significant amounts of the render which was in as bad condition on account of being poor quality in the first instance and then having suffered through twenty odd years of not being properly protected by a good quality paint.

The next task, after pausing briefly to take the required "Before" photos, was to fill in all the bare areas of render with the special mortar/filler that the paint companies manufacture specifically to undertake these sorts of repairs in that the composition has a much higher waterproofing and adhesive properties than normal fillers. Once completed we then applied a coating of stabiliser/sealer to prime the surfaces ready to receive two (in some areas three) coats of the world class Jotun Jotashield paint that we apply by airless spray equipment. Hey Presto! as good as (if not better than!) new.

This of course left only one task outstanding, to take the "After" photos of course!!




Monday 26 September 2022

Painters Trany!

I am frequently asked which piece of our painting equipment I value the most and on reflection I generally reply that for exterior house paint contracts the Honda Motor Driven High Pressure Wash Machine because of its inestimable efficiency and time saving properties when we are cleaning down the walls of a property that has significant issues with peeling and flaking paint and render.

However when it comes to working indoors I, as legions of other painters and DIYers have discovered, that a radio playing in the background aids concentration and speeds up the production rate considerably.

Nowadays of course this music can be supplied by new technology gadgets such as MP3 Players and Smart Phones etc. however back in the day the industrious painter had to rely on the good old fashioned Transistor Radio which was know as "The Trany" for short.

Of course we now live in a world of cross dressers and gender benders and so the word "Trany" has acquired a completely different meaning to a generation not weaned on the music of the ubiquitous trany.

For this reason I am always very careful when asking a young employee if they could "Bring a trany in to work tomorrow?"