About

Click a question below to learn more about…

MARK LOTZ
REMODELING & PAINTING EXPERT

How long have you been doing what you do and how did you become a remodeling & painting expert?
Mark LotzWho are your ideal clients?
What type of client is our painting or remodeling program NOT going to work for?
How are you different from other painting contractors & remodelers & what are the benefits of working with you?
Can I contact some of your former clients to see what it’s like to work with you?
What services do you offer?
Do you ever break your own rules and offer more than painting & remodeling?
I want to work with you. What is my next step?

 

How long have you been doing what you do and how did you become a remodeling & painting expert?

To answer this question, I think its best to share with you a defining moment and resulting “compelling story” that brought me to where I am today, servicing people like you for their home improvement needs.

What guy, in their right mind, trades in their wife’s 2-seater sport car without her knowledge or permission?

To make the story even worse, trades it in for a paint truck?

Well, that guy was me.

My defining moment happened in February 1987. You see, I was raised a painter by my father, a family craft taught to me directly from the master in the construction business. My father ran his own painting company and I worked for him all during my high school years.

A typical work year was April through November, and then we would sit most of the four winter months with no income. This is mostly because we live in Chicago, and there isn’t much painting happening at the dead of winter.

Well, I met Brenda, my wife, at the age of 19, right out of high school, and we were married at the young age of 21.

All was good until that first winter of our marriage when my father had no work and I knew I’d be sitting home most of the winter. Not a good way to start off a marriage. Ha! Realizing that I couldn’t sit home all winter while my wife went to work in Chicago for her 14 hour day, I knew I had to change something.

That February in 1987 was my defining moment. After I dropped off Brenda at the train station, I decided to trade in her sports car for a paint truck and start my own painting business.

Needless to say, she was shocked that night when I picked her up at the train station with our new pick-up truck. Her steam of anger quickly was extinguished when I told her I was taking our financial future into my own hands and I was going to run our own painting company.

Brenda ran the office at night after getting off the train, and I ran the crew of men out in the field during the day. We both are very hard working individuals, so it was a recipe for success.

I made a commitment to give total customer care and expertise on every project. I essentially decided to become a mini-expert on painting & improvement projects, both in your home or office. Our recipe for success is problem solving, customer service, and good communication both with the customer and in the field with our team of men.

Over the years, our customers starting asking us to do more work for them besides painting because they grew to love our work & our exceptional service we provided.

We have evolved into a remodeling and painting contractor over the 26 years. We have a loyal customer base who respects our professional service we provide, and they were basically demanding that we offer them more, so that is where the bathroom & kitchen remodeling came in.

I’d be lying if the past 26 years has been easy. It hasn’t. It’s been hard work, a lot of late hours, but Brenda and I wouldn’t change it for anything. We love to provide exceptional customer service and offer you excellent craftsmanship on every project. We accept each customer as a customer we would like to have for life, not just for this project.

I think this quote from Walt Disney sums it up for Brenda and I:

“When we consider a project, we really study it–not just the surface idea, but everything about it. And when we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way. We have confidence in our ability to do it right. And we work hard to do the best possible job.”                          – Walt Disney

So to sum up, we hope you will consider being one of our customers. Brenda and I plan on being in business for another 26 years. So here’s a big cheers to the future and long-standing customer relationships. Are you going to be our next customer? We certainly hope so.

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Who are your ideal clients?

I work with people just like you.

You love your home or office but don’t have the ability to do the yearly tasks to keep your home or office running efficiently due to your work schedule or lifestyle.

My ideal client is someone who respects a professional contractor and the value we bring to their projects.

Half of our business comes directly from highly successful, working professionals who realize they don’t have the extra time to do it themselves and can make more money doing what they do best, their profession. They hire our company to fix their problems back at home.

These professionals also include business owners who want to hire us to remodel or paint their office work space, reception areas, break rooms, or dining areas, so that it is warm and inviting to their clients.

The other half of our business comes from empty-nesters who are at a point in their lives where their children are grown up and they don’t really want to do the work themselves anymore. They have enough capital to hire a professional contractor and realize the value of sitting back and enjoying their golden years.

Interestingly, part of this group also includes widowed women and single professional women. Because of our exceptional customer care that Brenda and I provide, this segment of women seem drawn to us because they need a company they can trust without exception because they don’t have another shoulder to lean on for home improvement needs. They feel very reassured when we are on their project.

Looking at the list below, you can see that I’ve worked with many different types of clients:

Executives
Doctors
Empty Nesters
Single, Professional Women
Dentists
Financial Advisors
Retired Seniors
School Teachers
Real Estate Brokers
Pediatricians
Business Owners
Widowed Women
CEO’s
Interior Decorators
too many to list!

and just one more is missing, you!

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What type of client is our painting or remodeling program NOT going to work for?

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is that we love to provide great customer service and have your business for life.

The bad news is that I’m very selective in who I work with and (gently) turn away people who aren’t suited for my services.

My company is NOT for…

Another type of person I won’t work with (without exception) is the micro manager who hovers over our work being done. If you cannot trust us to do a good job, then we are the wrong company to hire and you should look elsewhere.

I’m not trying to sound harsh, but when you spend the type of money to hire a professional contractor, you should be able to sit back and relax, knowing it will be done right. I don’t want you to waste your time or money. Is that fair?

If you do your homework on us beforehand (checking out our references, making sure we have insurance, watching our testimonial videos), this should make you feel relaxed to know we will take care of everything for you, and you can do what you do best.

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How are you different from other painting contractors & remodelers & what are the benefits of working with you?

You have many remodeling & painting companies to choose from in the Chicagoland area.

Because of the 26 years of experience of my family craft taught by my father, I offer that onto every project this experience.

I have strong relationships with my business team partners and we make your project our priority.

Also, I ONLY offer you remodeling & painting improvements.

I’m not a Jack-of-all-trades.

What that means to you is that I am very focused on anything and everything that will improve your home’s value or office functionality while educating you along the way.

Because of my focus, what you get with me is no-nonsense, undiluted expertise.

I’ve simply become an expert at customer service and that’s why my clients get great results. I look at each customer as a customer for life.

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Can I contact some of your former clients to see what it’s like to work with you?

Yes, I encourage you to!

You’ll find client testimonials (both video and written) on our main website page under “Testimonials”, and spread throughout my site at the bottom of most of the pages.

See which ones resounds with you, either because the person is in your industry, profession, demographic, or age.

If you feel you need to contact them directly, just let me know and I can give you their personal contact information. Feel free to ask what it was like working with me.

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What services do you offer?

To better serve you, we offer only two types of services: remodeling & painting. Let’s break apart both for further clarity.

We offer two types of remodeling, bathroom remodeling & kitchen remodeling.

We believe this keeps us focused on clear results for your final project, because we only do bathroom & kitchen remodeling.

The full range of both bathroom & kitchen remodeling includes either

(a) keeping the same footprint, or

(b) a completely new one.

What I mean by the “same footprint” is that we keep the all plumbing and electrical where they are now and just install all the latest technology and interior design work from elegant tile designs, flooring, custom cabinetry, and Cambria or quartz countertops.

If you desire a new remodeling design, we can do that as well. This will be more expensive than the “same footprint” design, because we have to pull city permits, and there are more technicalities involved.

It truly is up to you, your budget, and if you want to have different functionality with a new design.

Most people don’t have an idea of what a typical bathroom remodel or kitchen remodel project costs…

Of course, this all depends if you choose the same footprint or want a new design, size of your room, the existing condition of the room, tile selections, flooring selections, cabinet & countertop choices, and bathroom fixtures.

You might be thinking, “But I was hoping to consider you for a room addition, basement remodel, or house addition, now what do I do?”

We completely understand. I need to make a confession at the onset here. When we started offering remodeling services, I thought to myself, well, we can offer everything under the sun. Right, the more the merrier?

Well, I quickly learned that sometimes less is more. Since we offer only bathroom & kitchen remodeling, we are more focused, which equates to a successful end result for you.

You still are wondering, “Now what? Where do I go to get my project done that you don’t offer?”

Well, get in contact with me still – shoot me an email and I can take down all the notes about your project.

If it isn’t within the scope of what we do, than I can refer you out to someone else. Because I’ve been in the construction business for 26 years, and around it for a total of 35 years, I will know who to refer you out to.

We also offer painting services, both exterior staining & interior painting.

These two areas are a little more broad. Because we realize you don’t want to hire out 5 individual companies, we have available for every project the following, consider us Your One Stop Shop when it comes to your painting needs.

Exterior Painting: When it comes time to have your exterior home or office stained, there are three main steps for a successful exterior staining project: Clean, Replace, Seal Up.

These are the services we offer in-house when you hire us:

  1. Clean – powerwashing, scraping & caulking;
  2. Replace – carpentry (rotten wood replacement of siding boards or damaged boards due to those pesty woodpeckers); and,
  3. Seal Up – staining or painting.

We have many videos on our website that will show you the step-by-step ways that we take your exterior project from start-to-finish: Clean, Replace, Seal Up.

Interior Painting: Because there are so many parts of a home’s interior to consider for improvement, let’s break apart what we offer:

I offer interior painting: painting your ceiling, walls, and trimwork.

Sometimes you have a pesky leaky roof or toilet, which can damage your ceilings. I offer drywall repair for those needs.

Last but not least, I offer carpentry.

This can range from having crown molding or wainscoting installed to freshen up a room, having new interior doors or trimwork installed, and finally, we can build a new staircase for you to include wooden or metal ballisers, and then offer either a full stain package of that new staircase, or a paint-stain package for that new staircase, leaving your front entry foyer looking like you just purchased a new home!

When it’s time to freshen up your office interior—from a single commercial office to an entire building—our courteous and professional painting crews will work around your schedule so you can quickly enjoy a fresh and inviting office interior with minimal interruption to your professional operations.

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Do you ever break your own rules and offer more than painting & remodeling?

I was really surprised to learn over the years that some of my clients wanted me to take my crew out of state for a large project or do a full renovation for them.

Because I have built up a trust with these individuals, they only want me general contracting their project.

I do have a few, elite group of customers that have come to know me personally & trust my company like we are their family too.

These few clients are highly successful business executives, business owners, famous local Chicago athletes, or TV personalities, and they do not want just “anyone” in their homes.

These elite customers have the financial means to pay for us to go out of state for them to perform our painting & remodeling skills on their second or third homes, work on their second homes on the Magnificent Mile, or handle a full general contracting project on their home.

We only offer these services to a few, select clients and due to the time commitment involved on my part, I can only perform a few of these per year.

If you are interested in this type of exclusive project handling, please send me a personal email to Brenda directly. She can talk to you directly about your request. Contact her at: Brenda@LotzRemodeling.com

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I want to work with you. What is my next step?

I’m so excited that you are considering becoming a client of mine. Sounds like you have read all of the details above of my business, what services I offer, and what type of clients I work for.

If you are interested in working with me and needing an estimate on your home or office for remodeling or painting, contact my office directly at 815-260-6773 or by email: info@LotzRemodeling.com