Do painters make mistakes?

Lol, no this is not a trick question.

Of course! Everyone makes mistakes. The real question should be: Do painters that make mistakes admit to them and fix it?

Just recently, for the first time in my painting career, I painted the wrong colors on the interior walls of a condo. There were 2 colors that were being used to compliment and accent each other and I got it backwards.

The homeowners and I were corresponding by email since this is a vacation/rental home of theirs. The wording was not confusing at all. It clearly stated what colors to use and where. I somehow just read it wrong.

Looking back, there were some things I could have done to avoid this. These are the type of things that actually make us change the way we do things. It's called learning from our mistakes. Regardless of what I could have done to prevent this, I now had customers who were on their way to look at the work......and it wasn't what they asked for.

As soon as I realized the mistake (yeah after I get home from finishing and open our email again 😳) I immediately called them to explain.

That phone call was tough.....but since I was working for some of the finest people in the world, they totally understood. It was a mistake, and a fixable one.

They told me to let them look at it first and see what their feeling on it was.

They loved the work and the colors, but there was just much more of the blue color than they wanted. I offered to change everything back to the original agreement but they insisted to just repaint part of the rooms over, and even offered to pay for the cost of paint.

I just finished making the corrections they wanted and will be starting some handyman items they need done around the place.

"Your mistakes don't define your character. It's what you do after you made the mistake that makes all the difference." - Dave Willis