01
High-End New Construction Painting
One of our two designated specialties. We work inside the builder's schedule, alongside the other trades, on houses that are still being finished around us.
Chapter 01
What goes wrong when the painter arrives too early
The most expensive mistake on a new house is coating a surface that is not ready. Stucco that has not finished curing will keep pushing moisture and alkalinity out through whatever you put on top of it, and the result is a wall that flashes, chalks or blisters within the first year. Fresh drywall has the same problem in a different form: joint compound that still holds water takes a topcoat unevenly, so the seams telegraph through in exactly the raking light that shows up in a South Florida great room at four in the afternoon.
The other failure is sequencing. On a house where the tile setters, the glaziers and the cabinet installers are all still moving through, a finish coat applied too early is simply a surface that is going to get damaged before anybody hands over keys. Then the painter comes back, patches, and the patch does not match, because a touch-up is never the same as a coat.
We have been doing new construction in Palm Beach and Broward counties since 1990, and most of what we bring to it is knowing when not to start.
A Creative Images painter spraying stucco on an active new-construction house in South Florida, with sheathing, ladders and neighbouring builds visible
Working inside a builder's sequence
On a new build the schedule is not ours, it is the builder's, and the job is to fit into it without becoming the trade that holds everyone else up. That means being clear about what we need and when: which rooms can be closed off, when the windows are in, when the HVAC is running and pulling humidity down to something a coating can actually cure in.
Spray gets used where spray belongs, on broad stucco elevations and on millwork that comes off and goes into a controlled space. Brush and roller get used where a sprayed edge would be wrong. Masking on a live site is not decoration, it is the difference between a clean handover and a glazier's invoice for polishing overspray off new glass.
Upper management is on the job site daily. On a build with six other trades moving through, that is the only way a problem gets caught the same day it happens rather than at the walkthrough. Our crews work in English and Spanish, which on a South Florida site is a practical requirement, not a line on a brochure.
Chapter 03
What the builder and the homeowner get at handover
A short punch list, because most of it was caught while we were still standing there. And a record of what actually went on the house: which product, which sheen, which colour, on which substrate. Benjamin Moore, Sherwin-Williams and Centura Paints all behave differently on stucco versus interior millwork, and three years from now, when the homeowner wants to touch up a hallway, that record is the difference between a repair nobody can see and a patch everybody can.
We can usually start two weeks after a proposal is accepted. If your build has a harder date than that, say so when you call (954) 857-3213 and we will tell you honestly whether we can meet it.
Creative Images Painting, Boca Raton. Licensed and insured. Florida license # U-17482. Call (954) 857-3213.