Five Star Painting of Utah County had the opportunity to paint a Habitat for Humanity home. It was a great experience to participant in and to serve others.
Here are a few captured shots while painting:
If interested in getting a FREE estimate on residential homes or commercial buildings, please call Five Star Painting at 1-866-965-STAR.
When there are roller marks on the wall, it is from the unintentional textured pattern left in the paint by the roller. This can happen from using the roller incorrectly or having the wrong roller cover. This is what it can look like:
The following are appropriate roller cover types and nap sizes to use for specific paints:
Good quality rollers ensure adequate film thickness and uniformity. When using latex paints, pre-dampen the rollers with water and shake out any excess water. Condition the paint by soaking it in the paint for about five minutes prior to painting. Try not to let the paint build up on the ends of the rollers. Also, be sure to sand and buff out any rough areas before painting.
For more questions regarding how to avoid roller marks, please visit Sherwin Williams website or give Five Star Painting a call 1-866-965-STAR.
Starting a business with nothing can be intimidating. Those who can relate to this will agree that having support helps you succeed. But, how can we succeed in the face of recession and VCs laughing at the very idea? Bootstrapping it – making smart decisions and never lose focus on the end product and the buyer. Find clever ways to bootstrap, no matter what your business is. Running a business is all about believing in yourself. Check out a previous post about the motivation of an entrepreneur.
If you think something is a good idea, don’t let yourself get talked out of it. Apply common sense and try not to let naysayers get to your head. If you feel something is a bad idea, keep your eye on it. To keep your business goals on track, you need to research your business idea to the max. Try not to plow ahead without taking the time to thoroughly plan and research. Be sure to trust your instincts when you want to succeed because you don’t want to overlook that first feeling of discomfort.
There are three different customers you will need to think about in relation to your idea. Purchasers – those who make the decision. Influencers – the organization who decide on the purchasing decision. End users – the person who directly interacts with your service or product.
Starting your dream company with nothing can be frightening, but it is possible with a few crafty moves and keeping your eye on the prize. Figure out where to save and how to bootstrap can mean the difference between the smell of success and the sourness of defeat. Let your natural instincts lead the way to success.
To learn more about starting a business, go here or give Five Star Painting a call at 1-866-965-STAR.
When kids live in a home, the walls are bound to get a few marks and scuffs. Accidents and experiments happen. Parents, take a deep breath. You may not prevent kids from spoiling your furniture, but you can likely repair the damage.
Save Left-Over Paint, Wallpaper, and Carpeting
When removing marks from the walls, some come off fine and others will remove the paint or wallpaper with it. In cases like these, parents will be grateful that they saved those cans of left-over paint or extra rolls of wallpaper. One important tip parents will want to remember when painting over a stain is to first use a primer. This will prevent the mark from bleeding through the new coat.
When Repainting, Go With Glossy
If you don’t have left-over paint and the store can’t match a paint chip to do a touch up, you’ll need to find a creative way to hide it the stain, or think about repainting the room. One silver lining to this dark cloud might be in nipping future marks in the bud. Instead of redecorating with more wallpaper or repainting with matte or satin, parents can try painting with a high-gloss finish. They’ll love the way marks, food, and whatever else their kids dish out next time wipes away with cleaner and a wet cloth.
Remodeling? Paint your walls with oil paint, a surface from which crayon can be easily cleaned. For new art supplies, go with soap-based crayons. To rid ink stains from the walls, wipe ink marks with bleach.
Consider painting a large area of your child’s bedroom with chalkboard paint. This gives children a big creative space where they won’t get into trouble when drawing on the walls. It turns out really cute too!
How to Remove Crayon from the Walls
To remove crayon from painted walls and wallpaper that you can scrub, put baking soda on crayon stains and scrubbing them clean with a wet toothbrush, as well as mixing dishwasher detergent and water and rubbing the solution with a damp sponge. Another great way is to put a blow dryer on it to melt the wax and remove with a damp washcloth.
Only allow young children to use washable art materials, such as markers, tempera and watercolor paint. It will save you a lot of headaches.
If you need help taking care of this problem, give Five Star Painting a call and we can help you out 1-866-965-7827.
Franchising World March 2010
As the International Franchise Association celebrates its 50th birthday this year, it has, among others, a rewarding achievement: enabling military veterans to attain their goal of small-business ownership. IFA’s Veterans Transition Franchise Initiative has helped more than 1,500 veterans acquire small-business franchise establishments through discounts and other financial incentives.
The program, known as VetFran, which is designed to lower the up-front costs of buying a franchise, has increased its popularity as nearly 400 IFA-member companies have signed on to participate. The franchises determine the financial incentives that fit their system and voluntarily agree to offer honorably-discharged veterans a better deal than is offered to otherwise qualified investors. A discount of the initial fee is typical, but each company is free to design the financial incentive that it feels will best serve veterans’ needs. VetFran is completely voluntary and receives no government funding.
VetFran has been recognized by the American Society of Association Executives with its Award of Excellence and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Veterans Enterprise naming it a “Champion of Veterans Enterprise.”
Company profiles, as well as the financial incentives they offer to veterans, can be viewed at www.franchise.org under “Franchises or Veterans.” Find Five Star Painting’s membership here.
If you have any questions about opening up a Five Star Painting franchise, feel free to call us at 1-866-965-STAR and find out what discounts we offer with the VetFran program.
Interested in franchising? Well today is your lucky day. Five Star Painting focuses on franchising as a means to increase growth. Franchising represents one of the largest economic drivers in the Unites States today, representing nearly nine percent of gross domestic product. The franchise model attracts entrepreneurs from all walks of life looking to take advantage of Five Star’s years of experience in the painting industry. It is widely accepted that most small businesses fail in the first three years, the franchise model has been shown to increase the likelihood of success. This success is partly due to the combined buying power and brain power of entrepreneurs under one brand.
Franchise Times magazine published the Fast 55 ranking of the fastest growing franchises in 2010. Five Star Painting is ranked no. 16 and the average unit growth number from 1004-2008 is 416.09%.
Franchise Business Review ranked Five Star Painting as the number one franchise painting system and in the top five best franchise systems in the home services market.
The painting industry is estimated at nearly $100 billion annually, is it one of the oldest and largest industries in America. It is not difficult to understand why; with ever changing trends, homeowners and business owners are regularly changing the interior and exterior paint colors of their homes and businesses. The result is a stable and growing industry.
If interested in learning more about opening up a Five Star Painting franchise in your area, click here.
This is for busy people everywhere – are you wanting a professional to solve and complete your home decorating dreams in colors, fabrics, window treatments, paints, furnishings, lighting, and more? Well today is your lucky day…Decor & You has partnered up with Five Star Painting and are excited to help those who are having decorating blues.
Are you tired of collecting a million paint chips, trying to measure your own windows, fighting shopping crowds and unknowledgeable sales people, and deciding which colors will make you happiest? Now imagine how convenient it would be if you had your own personal interior decorator come to your home to take care of everything for you – with talent, creative ideas, and an incredible array of brand names you love, all to fit your taste, your style and most importantly your budget – this is where Decor & You comes in.
Some of the most significant aspects of a room are the artwork and accessories that embellish the walls. This is also why choosing what goes on the walls can be such a difficult decision. Artwork is usually eye-level; it is the first thing we notice when we enter a room and the thing we focus on the most. So, it is important to use pieces that we find pleasing, and place them where they will fit best.
Changes to your home don’t always have to be drastic, but a new piece of artwork can easily freshen up your space. There are many aspects to consider when placing art or accessories: Does the overall color scheme of the room agree with the piece? Is it positioned well in the room? Is it in the right room? Color is important – try brighter accessories to quickly liven up a room, and neutral ones to capture that peacefulness you desire.
So make a difference, and have some fun with artwork and accessories in your home. Click here to locate your local DecorDeisgner who can help you get started today.
Through torrential downpours and high-winds, die-hard runners and walkers prepared to participate in the North Shore 30K to benefit Neurofibromatosis scheduled on March 14, 2010. This benefit was sponsored by Five Star Painting of North Shore in Boston, Massachusetts. With over 100 participants, the relay teams and walkers did a 15K course, while the majority of runners ran the same course twice totaling 30K.
The weather was far from perfect – course markers and signs were blown away, traffic cones were knocked over, puddles were knee-high, and water cups were filling on their own. While it was cold and windy, the participants remained strong and remembered what the race was for – serving those with Neurofibromatosis. This disorder is genetically-inherited in which the nerve tissue grows tumors that may be harmless or may cause serious damage by compressing nerves and other tissues.
Steve Oransky and Carmelina Procaccini of Five Star Painting were happy to lend a hand in sponsoring the fundraiser for such an important event. Participants and volunteers proved that if they set their mind on a goal, they can accomplish it. This will be one race that they will remember for a long time.
Do you want to give your home a face lift? If so, Five Star Painting is here for your service. Cleanliness, timeliness and being on budget are the hallmarks of our company. We would be pleased to give you a FREE estimate for any painting project you have in mind. Visit our website or give us a call to set up an appointment with your local estimator.
When it comes to decorating, choosing paint color can really be a challenge. There are so many choices to choose from, you would think you’re bound to find the right one, but you may not know where to even begin! Five Star Painting can help you decide what colors will radiant your home. Check out the tips below if you have a painting project in the works.
Patience
It’s great to collect paint chips when planning a room, but hold off making final choices until you’ve developed an overall room scheme. Paint is available in millions of colors and is the most versatile element of your room decor, the easiest to change, and the least expensive. Get ideas but make the final decision after rugs, wallpaper, and fabrics are finalized.
Color Shopping
When you go shopping, you’ll need to refer to your fabric, carpet, tile, wallpaper, and trim samples constantly. Be sure to take everything with you wherever you go. You never know when you might see something wonderful. Consider which paint finish might be best for your project. Matte or flat finishes hide wall imperfections, but glossier finishes will reflect more light.
Colors for Trim
The shade of white or off-white for the moldings, doors, and windows are the most popular. If you’re feeling brave, consider the palest shade of color to coordinate with the walls. For a really striking look, try lighter walls and dark tones or bright color for trim.
Paint stores encourage their consumers to use a primer under the top coat of paint. This makes them a lot of money of course, but is not the best advice. When someone wants to use primer, they only think of two different capabilities – priming and sealing. In reality, primer is about two different applications and probably two different products.
Remember this rule – If the substrate is already painted, you DON’T NEED a primer anymore. You may need a sealer if there are pen marks or a water stain, but not a primer.
So the next time you question buying primer, remember these tips. If you have any questions or would like a FREE estimate, call Five Star Painting at 1-866-965-STAR (7827).
Is there a better way to paint? This past year Five Star Painting has been creating a video series taking suggestions on which method is a better way to paint. These suggestions have come from people all across North America. We have taken into consideration to attempt these different methods and here is a sneak peek of a few shots we captured.
Stay tuned later this week for when we launch these videos.
One of our professional painters has learned the hard way when freezing his paint brushes over night. He mentions that back in the good old days when he used to be able to freeze his brushes instead of cleaning them, it helped greatly because the paint didn’t dry on the brush. He didn’t have to spend the time cleaning them out at the end of the day. He was only able to do this because he used oil paint on just about everything – and oil paint does not freeze. Nowadays, the use of oil paint is long gone.
There are many people who still think they can use the freezer method with the paints we use today. Since oil paint hasn’t been used in years and latex paint is the new thing, it will freeze and you’ll find yourself with a brushsicle in the morning. It will be quite some time before you can actually use the brush again. Paint brushes can be quite expensive and it would be a shame to throw them out. Most latex paints, once frozen, will not go back to their natural viscosity – it turns into a jelly mess, rendering the brush completely useless. If this occurs and goes unnoticed, your painting project could end up being a disaster and a waste of time and money.
The moral of the story is –take the time to wash out your brushes after you paint, unless you’re still able to find some old oil paint lying around. It is worth it in the end for a professional looking paint job. For any questions that you have please contact us at 1-866-965-STAR or visit our website to chat live with a representative.
Spring is the perfect time to give your home a fresh look. Liven up traditional design with the hottest spring colors, serving as inspiration for the entire home. Spring traditionally awakens a sense of freshness and new beginnings, with sprouting shoots and blossoming flowers that inspire people to breakout of the winter blues. From serene shades to vivid hues, here are some color schemes you’ll want to try this season.
Bright & Clean
Spring hues are ideal for a girl’s bedroom. Use a polka-dot pillow and damask fabric in apple green as inspiration to complement a pink wall. A white headboard would make the pink wall pop.
Energizing Appeal
One of the most appealing shades of spring is the deep blue. Combine it with other favorite hues, like tomato red, turquoise and apple green, to create an energetic and bright design.
Luxurious Surroundings
The classic blue and yellow combo is always a favorite. While white is often paired with this palette to keep it light and airy, using black accents to create a richer, more sophisticated atmosphere also works well.
Serene and Restful
Welcome nature into the bedroom with a soft green. The great thing about shades of green is that they look fabulous and they’ve got a nice calming effect. Add some floral textiles to create this calming retreat. Refer back to a previous blog post on Color Trends for 2010 for more details.
Accessorize Your Home
Create a fresh and open space with cheery spring accessories. Use a color to paint the walls and the remaining colors for pillows, lampshades, rugs and other great accessories.
Five Star Painting would be happy to present some helpful color schemes, as well as decorating tips to give your home a fresh look. Please call us at 1-866-965-STAR.
It is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do to a home or commercial building. What a difference it can make in the curb appeal of your home or the business that it can bring in.
For a FREE estimate, give Five Star Painting a call at 1-866-965-STAR or chat with a local representative on our website for any questions that you have.
Check out these great Before and After examples that have been completed by Five Star Painting franchises.
An email signature is usually a few lines of text placed at the bottom of an email message, forum or newsgroup that identifies you, your company, and your product or service. People don’t fully understand the effectiveness of email signatures and therefore lose out on an opportunity to gain new customers.
There are many ways you can create your email signature, but having a poor signature can hurt your professional reputation. With that said, here are some general instructions that can guide you in formatting a professional signature.
Email Signature Tips
Examples of Email Signatures
Default version:
–
John Smith
President | Top Web Design USA
555-555-5555 | john@johnsmith.com | http://www.websiteurl.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/twittername | LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/linkedinname
Replies:
–
John Smith
555-555-5555
http://www.websiteurl.com
To optimize the effectiveness of your email signature, you need to also track them. You’re your website address is written out in your signature file, you can redirect it by tracking the full URL. The best way to go about this is by using ad tracking software. This allows you to keep track of any traffic that comes your way through your email signature.
It is time to advertise online using social media. 2009 was a pretty wild year in the world of marketing. While social media was building up steam in previous years, it pretty much went mainstream this past year. As the hype mediated and people began to understand how to use these new programs, more change was developing. The expansion of social media in 2009 prepared some significant trends to pop up into the world of small business in 2010.
Most accounts for advertising through social media are free, but for some you will need to be educated on how to function them. Because social media is so cost effective, you can determine the cost by choosing how much production time you want to put into your content. Professional quality is extremely crucial.
The major goal is to stay on a personal level, so that you get a connection with your audience. It is to share one’s voice, to be authentic, and to encourage a community. Others will notice that they can relate to you in similar experiences. The more the audience connects with your business, the more they will want to work with you. When a business owner shares their passion through social media, it really shows how much they love their work. It can be far more effective compared to an ad.
Here are some ideas before you jump into the social media scene:
Below are a few tips when maintaining your accounts for social media:
We will see small business owners finally start to embrace these significant expansions in the New Year. It is essential to understand how social media plays a beneficial role in your business. You would be surprised the number of customers social media brings in. It also expands your search engine optimization, which improves the volume or quality of traffic to your website in a natural or unpaid way. To better your understanding, you can sign up for webinars regarding Social Media 101.
Service Temperatures
Here is the scale for the maximum service temperature for paints:
*These products will fail if they are exposed to temperatures higher than listed above.
Thermal Tack
Thermal tack is caused when the humidity and temperature rise enough to make the coating soften on latex gloss and semi-gloss paints. Even if the paint was applied a long time ago, this problem may still occur. The surface will become tacky to the touch initially, but will go away once the temperature and humidity drop. In areas where this might happen on a frequent basis, it would be wise to paint front doors and jams in an oil based paint instead. If the doors become tacky, they tend to stick to the weatherproofing and cause a mess.
Paint Viscosity
The thickness or viscosity of the paint depends greatly on the temperature of the paint. When a paint is colder, the molecules huddle together as if they were cold, which makes the paint thick. When you try and apply that paint to the wall, it will tend to sag and will not flow very well because of its viscosity level. On the flip side, warmer molecules want to spread out, which almost thin the paint. Because of this, the paint will go on too lightly and you will have problems with coverage. For the best results, try and regulate the temperature of your paint by having it be between 70˚F or 21˚C and 77˚F or 25˚C before you start to paint.
Sheens and Touch Ups
Touching something up can sometimes be a difficult thing to do. It is quite dependant on the sheen, the type (latex or oil), and the age of the paint. First, let’s talk about oil paints. Oil eggshell and semi-glosses will lose a quarter to a third of their sheen after about three months. Trying to touch up a surface that has been painted with that type of paint after the three months could be very obvious. It is better to repaint the entire area instead of just touching it up. Latex paints also tend to lose their gloss, but at a much slower rate and quantity as oil paints. Latex paints are easier to touch up, but remember that you might have some flashing depending on the amount of time since the original paint was applied. With oil and latex paint, you also might run into the problem of fading paint due to sun or other environmental issues. Fortunately, both oil and latex flats are the easiest to touch up, even after a period of time. A quick tip: using an HVLP to touch up the surfaces seems to blend the sheen differences the best.
Temperature Ranges
Be sure to do any touch ups to a surface at the same temperature in which the original paint was applied. There is a rule of thumb in the painting world, that you should not paint any surface below 50˚F or 10˚C, or if that surface will dip down below that temperature at night, until the paint has sufficiently dried. There are, however, some paints out there that have been developed to extend the exterior painting season that will allow the paint to be applied in 35˚F or 2˚C, (ICI’s Fortis and This Old House). If you do touch up something under the recommended temperature, it might dry a little lighter than the original paint. Therefore be sure to apply the touch up paint at the same temperature in which the original coat was applied.
Touch Up Applicators
(This is especially true for smooth walls.) If you are going to touch up a surface, make sure that you use the same applicator as was used originally. Different applicators leave different finishes on the surface. It would be very obvious if there were a brush mark in the middle of a rolled wall. Try and be consistent with the applicators you use and you will find that you will have better results. The more the wall is textured, the easier it is to touch up using any tool, even using a brush over a rolled surface.
Preparation is the key to beautiful, long-lasting results for any painting task. Why spend all that time choosing astounding paint colors for your living room remodel or baby’s first nursery if you aren’t going to take the first step to ensure your new colors will withstand the test of time? Five Star Painting is proud to be partnered up with Sherwin Williams who has supplied us with great insight regarding the prep-work to any paint job.
Often forgotten, primers are made to help your finish coat be smooth and uniform. They can save several hours of time and several dollars. Some are formulated specifically to cover stains and discoloration, block out odors, hide surface marks and there are even primers that are made especially for use with dark vivid colors. All primers help to anchor the finish coat so it “sticks” better, ensure a rich shine for enamels, fill uneven surfaces and seal porous surfaces.
Prime for the Pickin’
When deciding which primer best suits your paint project, there are a couple of important elements you should take into consideration. One is the surface to be painted. Whether the surface you are painting is drywall in your brand new home, older wood in your basement or concrete in your stylish loft, there are ideal primers for each surface to ensure that the finish coat offers optimal beauty and protection.
Another important element to consider when choosing a primer is the paint color. Testing by the experts has found that often deep paint colors are best primed with gray-tint shades, and for this reason special primers have been designed to maximize deep hues. For example, the Sherwin-Williams Color Prime System has gray-tint shades for primers to achieve a true color in fewer coats. Another way to make those bold accent colors pop is to refer to the back of the color chip for primer recommendations. For example, deep, saturated colors are extremely popular for the home right now. To get the best possible results for these bold colors, a gray-tint primer is an ideal choice.
An interior latex primer is the perfect selection for most home painting projects. It goes on easy, dries fast and provides the best coverage on a variety of new or previously painted surfaces, such as wood, plaster and drywall. And clean-up can be a snap, with just soap and water.
Remember that primer can often make or break your paint project. In the long run, using primer will save you time and money by reducing the number of times you need to paint or repaint a surface. Choosing the perfect primer for the job can be simplified by seeking expert advice at an area paint store. For more information on primers, please check out our website or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams.
Running your own business isn’t for everyone. Most cannot deal with the huge time, energy, and financial investment required, all without knowing what’s around the corner. 93 percent entrepreneurs are males, with close to two-thirds in the 26-39 year range. A quarter of them have undergraduate degrees, while 69 percent had master’s degrees. All had been employed for five to eight years before starting their first business. Being an entrepreneur is no easy task, so what motivated them to start out in business and why did they choose to break out on their own rather than going to work for someone else? It is the motivation to work on something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging.
Businesses can start-up in a garage and end up being a global Fortune 500 company. Blog.gcase.org states that it starts with an entrepreneur who perceives an opportunity, creates an organization to pursue it, assembles the required resources, implements a practical plan, and assumes the risks and the rewards. It was once said that entrepreneurship is a lot like driving fast on an icy road. Entrepreneurship is a continual problem-solving process. It is like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle; at first pieces will seem to be “missing,” obscure, or not clearly recognizable. Entrepreneurs do what they love, and they love what they do.
Entrepreneurs stick it out through thick and thin, they have passion. When you truly love your work, you have motivation fueled by passion. This is why you the stories of people that failed over and over again, and finally, they ended up having their success. Their passion never could allow them to give up. So they kept going, trying different angles, until it finally happened for them. When the going gets tough, that’s when you need your motivation. You’ve got to keep feeding and building it. Read books about other successful people, see what they did, and think about how you can incorporate their ways of thinking into yours.
Unlike many working people, entrepreneurs truly enjoy their work. When they find something new, they might view it in terms of “how can this help my business?” and “what opportunities does this open up for me?” Many entrepreneurs enjoy the challenge of building something out of nothing. Many people in the wider business world are only involved with part of a product’s lifecycle, whereas entrepreneurs generally enjoy a bird’s-eye view of it all.
Many people give entrepreneurship a try only to fail miserably very quickly. There is a reason why 95% of startup businesses aren’t around two years later. These people see running their own business as the route to financial freedom. So after a few setbacks, they give up. An entrepreneur will see the big picture, even during those dark days they will focus on the end result. When you first start a business, you will have pour your heart and soul into it. When the results are less than what was expected, it can be very difficult for some to take. A failure is a lesson, and a step in the right direction. That’s how a motivated entrepreneur analyzes any setback. So if you ever think of starting your own business, remember to have passion for it. When you truly love what you do and put so many hours into it, you will not allow yourself to fail miserably at it.
What is driving so many young people to pursue careers as entrepreneurs? What are they searching for? They want more freedom and love the rush. They insist on the flexibility they can create through their own business. They like working for their own goals and their own measures of success in life. Know-accounting.com states that Purdue University conducted a survey between 2004-2006, in which they questioned 101 Indiana entrepreneurs to see what motivated them to start their own businesses. They found that those making more than $100,000 a year were less likely to start their own businesses than those in the $50,000 to 75,000 range. In a Yahoo survey, 21.4 percent of small business owners said they were interested in enjoying a more flexible work schedule and quality time with their family. When you start your own business not only do you become your own boss, but you’re able to enjoy a more flexible work schedule.
To learn more about entrepreneurs, check out a few of our previous posts by clicking here.
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