Bringing the beauty back (to stay): Top Choice Painting & Restoration, LLC
Maverick Magazine Article July 2008 By Amie Rodgers

For most of us, our homes are the largest investments we will ever make. Once the initial honeymoon period of homeownership is over, the maintenance begins. Things wear out, break down and fade. Keeping up can be daunting and if you don’t do your homework, you can spend a lot of money for very little. One very important maintenance project not to let go by the wayside is your home’s paint or stain finishes. Preserving the exterior surface of your home is literally a matter of protecting your investment from the elements and rot.

Recently, I visited on site with Chris Fazio, owner of Top Choice Painting & Restoration, as he and his crew worked to restore and preserve a beautiful log home in Torreon Resort Community. Top Choice Painting & Restoration is a full service restoration company that focuses on restoring older log homes. During their eight to twelve step restoration process, they take the project from cob blasting all the way through to clear coat application.

“Media blasting has been around for many, many years,” explains Chris. “There are three or four different media types that are used including corn cob, walnut shell, sand, and soda. Since cob blasting is the center of the cob ground up, it is green and can be used as mulch. The homeowner of our current project plans on throwing bark right over the top of our cob dusting. Everything we do is green, right down to the water based products we use. Oil based products are much more harsh on our environment. They are also messy and sticky when sprayed. With water based products, you are not going to damage plants, animals and people around you.

The cleaners we use, such as log wash, are also biodegradable.” In the case of this project, the homeowner’s beautifully landscaped yard remains completely unscratched from the intense restoration project. With this project, we were extra careful with the landscaping because the client was extensively planting. So, I communicated to him to avoid planting right around the base of the house. Everything beyond that we covered with plastic. We even draped plastic over his fish pond,” notes Chris. “He was so happy that we protected his landscaping that he treated us to dinner.

For us, customer service is very important. We are not an “in and out” painting company. We are not going to tear through a job in three days. It is just not what we do. With our projects, we want to walk away feeling as if we just created a painting, not just a paint job.” In addition to a refreshing commitment to customer service, quality and longevity are also very important to Chris. “We want to provide a product that has longevity. When we come to the job site, we interview with the customer, talk about warranties, products and the scope of the job. At that point, they can hand the ball off to us.

We restore the home and take care of it for them. The results can last fifteen to twenty years. Top Choice Painting will warrantee the workmanship for ten years. “We have done a lot of research on the products we use,” says Chris. “In the case of log homes, we use Perma-Chink because not only do they have the finishes, but they also have the chinking, the backer rods and all the supplies we need. They are a national company based in Colorado that offers a written warranty for five years. If you take their five years and my ten years, together with our service contract, you have a warranty that will protect your investment for a long time.”

Doing the job right seems like a fairly simple concept, but as in all things, you get what you pay for and in some cases, you may not get what you pay for. In the case of the homeowner Chris is working with, he thought he was getting a home that was sealed against bugs and elements. During the restoration, he found out otherwise. “A lot of the log homes that are built are not chinked properly, and the checks are not filled correctly. Window frames and the entire opening around the window are not caulked. This home was a perfect example,” explains Chris. “It is a beautiful, high class home and he had all kinds of areas where water, bugs and the elements were coming in. Looking for these kinds of issues is another area within our scope. We caulk and seal before we ever cob media blast. Unfortunately, the high percentage of leaking areas you could find in log homes leads to an even higher percentage, in terms of what you lose in heating/cooling efficiency (as much as 40%) and pest control costs. This homeowner has already noticed a difference after our works results. His air conditioner is actually cycling and stopping, whereas before it was running nonstop. This is why we are not a ‘blow and go’ company. We take the time to do the prep work that pays off in the finished product.”

Tips for getting the job done right:

Never buy without a full inspection:
Before you buy it, have someone qualified do a full inspection of EVERYTHING. “Once the inspection is done, you can determine what the needs are and figure a restoration into the budget if need be,” advises Chris. “If you go into it thinking you are going to cut corners or do it a little at a time, you are going to be disappointed. In the case of log homes, the logs are all of your insulation. In any other home, be sure to inspect the wood surfaces so you can have it in your budget to paint or stain right, not just get a production paint job. So, my biggest tips would be inspect it, figure it into your budget and do it right.”

Beware of the super low bids:
“The production based paint job is geared to going in and out within one or two days. At one of my job sites, I noticed a stain job in the neighborhood where the painters came in and immediately started putting up paper on the windows. This instantly told me that they were not going to pressure wash the house. They were going to spray stain on top of dirt. They don’t care. They are in and out at an average price that might be $2,000 to $2,500 and has to be redone every year. It can really add up. Chris also notes that production paint jobs often cut crucial corners. “We use two coats rather than the one coat used in a ‘blow and go.’ One coat results in the customers repainting or re-staining every one to two years,” says Chris, “When we do it, we warranty it for eight to ten years. We provide the longevity of product. There are plenty of paint jobs out there. We don’t want to rely on repaints for our customers.

In addition to log home restoration, Top Choice Painting and Restoration is available for historical restorations, new home construction, repaints, cabinet refinishing, and more. To learn more about Chris and his company feel free to visit their website at: www.topchoicepainting.com  You can also contact Chris Fazio at 231-944-8891.