Pristine Painting perfects palaces

Businessman putting more color in homes

When people consider hiring Ed Dai to paint their houses, they shouldn't be surprised if he invites them to see the inside of his. It is, he says, a perfect example of what he can do to bring out a home's features, deal with free-flowing floor plans and see how color on ceilings can spruce up a room.

Dai is the owner/operator of Pristine Painting, and recently relocated to Las Vegas with his wife, Nancy.

When someone considers hiring him, Dai arrives with a portfolio of pictures and paint samples. Before he leaves he gives people a written estimate and asks them to check up on him through his Web site, which is linked to the contractor's board.

He admitted his estimate probably wouldn't be the lowest. That's because he uses paint that starts at $25 a gallon. Others, he said, will use paint that costs less than $10.

"The products I buy are not necessarily what most track-home builders use," he said. "Builder-grade paint has a higher water content with less concentration of pigment. So when the homeowner goes to sponge a child's (handprint) off the wall, what happens? They make a bald spot."

As for trends, the Southwest colors are long gone and most residents want faux finishes or two-toned walls. Roughly 35 percent of residents who hire Dai choose to put color on their ceilings. Many of those saw how he used it in his own home.

He can add trompe l'oeil features, make pillars stand out and create murals for children's rooms. Some people hire him to do only one room, but when they see the results, have him do more.

Even people who decide not to hire him call him with concerns. He estimated half of his jobs come from people dissatisfied with the first painter they used and need the job fixed. Dai also paints home exteriors.

One of his commercial works was for the new Creative Cooking School, 7385 W. Sahara Ave. He was recommended by Sherwin Williams.

"I've been to his house and it looked better than any model home that I've ever seen," said Catherine Margles, owner/operator. "To me, to have someone invite you to their home to see some of their work tells me that they take great pride in what they do."

She hired him to paint the school's interior and had him do the faux finishing, including the archway and the logo and wine bottle above the demo kitchen.

Dai, 36, is a third-generation craftsman and grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His grandfather immigrated to America as a sheet metal worker and helped build the Empire State Building. His father installed heating and cooling systems. Dai began working beside his father as a teen, taking on handyman jobs, painting people's garages.

After high school, he earned a degree in finance management at Manhattan College. During his last year in college he established Palace Painters and Renovators. Not that New York had many palaces to restore, but it did have historic homes.

"I've been in the first building in New York to incorporate an elevator," he said. "These homes go back to Colonial days, when they had cobble streets."

Dai worked on 20 to 30 projects a year, hiring a small crew to help but did most of the detail work himself.

He said he was proudest of a major project that restored the ceiling of the First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights. It was a job that had him on scaffolding 70 feet in the air.

His crew hoisted up 35 gallons of different colored paint so he could mix them into matching colors. He didn't just repair the ceiling, he made his paint job look like aged stones. A picture of the result holds a prominent spot on his Web site www.pristinepainting.com.

Dai decided to go to night school and earned a specialized degree at New York University in construction management at 24. That allowed him to manage field conditions on large-scale commercial and residential renovation projects. At 25, he was licensed as a general contractor.

Dai and Nancy, who liked to visit Las Vegas, decided to move here for a better quality of life.

"Yeah, that was kind of a gamble," he said. "But entrepreneurs are used to taking gambles. They can make it anywhere -- especially if they come from New York."


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