Attention to detail

So we've been in the "new" house for just over a year now and have finally decided to start tackling the monstrous job of painting the interior rooms.  Have you ever repainted a room and found the last person to do it was a little less than concerned with details?

In most every house I've done some painting in, I've been able to see the color that was painted over somewhere.  In most rooms it's around outlets, light switches, or air return grates.  I've also found it on cabinets, behind the fridge, or behind trim.  In the bathroom, it's typically behind the toilet tank. 

I can understand not painting behind the tank, as it does take a little bit of work to remove it, but it's not really too difficult, so I guess I don't really get it.  Outlets, switches, and grates require you to remove one or two whole screws, so that one I get even less.

With our house now, I'm starting to find it in places that give a whole new definition to the word lazy.  Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about, in order from least lazy to most.

1 - Toilet tank.  As mentioned, there is a little work to be done here, so that makes this the least laziest spot to skip.

2 - Trim near furniture.  There was a piece of furniture against the wall, so they stopped when they got close and picked it up again a safe distance away.  It would have required a little effort to slide it, paint, and slide it back.  Instead, they left about a foot long section of the window frame in the original yellow, instead of the white they painted everything else with.

3 - Behind the radiator - This one is only difficult as it requires either very small hands or the usage of a smaller brush or roller.  Since they were unwilling to do that, almost every single room in the house has a virgin canvas behind the radiator.


At least they didn't paint the radiator at our house.

4 - Refrigerator.  The fridge is on rollers, so all they would have had to do was roll it out, paint, and roll it back.  Since there is a water line attached, it would have added a slight rating to the degree of difficulty, but not much.  Instead, they just painted a few inches in and moved on.

Not our house, but seems to be a common problem.

5 - Trim where they had to paint higher than they could reach while standing on the floor.  This one is funny.  The trim is white up until about the seven foot mark, then there's another few inches where you can see someone painted a little bit, maybe even by jumping.  Above that, it's the same yellow from #2.  They could have stood on a chair (this was in the kitchen) or gotten a ladder, but that was apparently too much work.

6 - Tops of door frames and window frames.  I get that not too many people see the tops of these, and in most rooms that would be okay.  That being said, the doors where you can see the tops of them while you walk down the stairs weren't painted either.  I guess they were going for a uniform approach.  They obviously had a ladder to paint the front part of the frames all the way to the top, but taking that one extra step to finish the job proved to be just too much.


Maybe they just had a small ladder.  Or maybe they were strict rule followers.

Infinity - Trim where they would have had to unplug (from a wall socket) a carbon monoxide detector.  This just floored me.  Instead of simply unplugging the detector, painting the three inch length, and then plugging it back in, they chose to leave it yellow.  Absolutely amazing.  You can even see the circular pattern they painted around it.

Maybe it's just me.  Am I being too critical of their work or is this something that irks others as well?