Kristin Walinski knew she needed help when her boyfriend made an observation about her dining room.
“He commented that the furniture in that room didn’t match [everything else], and he isn’t really décor-savvy,” she says. “I thought, ‘If he can see this, then I have to do something.’”
Walinski’s recent walk-through was related to a very special event: Historic Garden Week in Virginia. Her home is on the Seminary route in Richmond’s North Side. Up to 1,200 visitors are expected to walk through her 1920s Mediterranean Revival Italian villa during the course of the day.
“I needed the work done in short order, because of the tour,” she says. She turned to H.J. Holtz & Son because of projects she had seen online and the company’s status as a Palette Paint preferred partner.
“They were extremely accommodating when I called and told them my dilemma,” she adds.
Soon, Holtz & Son was painting the dining room table, six matching chairs, and a Bombay chest. They were transformed using Fine Paints of Europe’s Hollandlac Brilliant and a spray-painting technique that leaves no brush strokes.
“It looks like they were lacquered at the factory,” Walinski says.
Based on the company’s approach to the furniture, Walinski raised another issue: her wood kitchen countertop, which was dull and flat.
“No painter before had been able to find a paint that met the need,” she said. “Rick [Holtz, company president] showed up and said, ‘We’ll get this done for you.’”
As it turned out, finding the right product was only the beginning.
Walinski’s floors were also being sanded, in anticipation of the tour, and no one realized how much dust was in the air until the countertop was painted – and “every speck of dust showed in the paint,” Walinski said.
She credits the Holtz team for finding a solution: tenting the countertop prior to painting and bringing in an air purifier to remove the dust so it wasn’t caught in the paint.
“They kept at it,” she says. “They must have painted that counter four times.”
Additional projects include repainting kitchen cabinets and woodwork, and a new front door for the house, which the company is also painting. Rick Holtz says the project is typical for any homeowner who has a special event on the horizon – whether it be a Garden Week tour, retirement or graduation party, or a neighborhood gathering.
“People want their homes to look good,” he says. “We can come in and make rooms fresh and bright, or bring a whole new look. The job itself may not be big, but the impact is significant.”
Walinski couldn’t be happier.
“I turned over the reins to them and said, ‘Let’s get this done,’” she says. “I had confidence in Holtz & Son because of their experience.”