Paint Jobs

I never thought about I would be involved in painting; nor my car will get a new coat of paint without involving in a serious car accident.

I still remembered about 3 or 4 years ago I went to check out the apartment when the tenant moved out. The unit is nice and clean, the paint is not new but still fresh. Now that the tenant moved out, the unit shows signs of the age: vapourized window, moulding developed around the window corner. The entrance wall was painted neon blue and now with dirty spot, my old bedroom became a yellow room and the rest of the wall brownish cream colour. What kind of paint job is that? In the balcony, a PLANT grow from the gap of the stone brick! The only bright side is that both bathroom are super clean and tidy.

So, the unit definitely need a fresh coat of paint before it can ever rent out again with a decent price.

Seeing my friend did a very good job painting her own apartment, I deicded to call for her help. And of course, I will share the work as well.

Let me see the list of work...cleaning the wall, sanding, taping the baseboard, take out the socket covers, paint one coat of primer, and two coats of actual paint...

Now that I'm looking forward to my first paint job, my mom's car actually got a new coat of paint as well. It looks so brand new now!

What happened was, I drove this car to work occasionally during the last three months while the insurance is activated. And sometimes I park at the far end of the parking lot.

Then one day, my coworker started mentioning that his car paint got damaged (tons of tiny black spots) and no matter how he wash, wax those spots never came off. As he started to talk around his case, he found out that he's not the only victim. And we all suspected that the black spot came from the roof work of the building next to the parking lot. And guess what, he reported to ICBC. ICBC actually sent people here and took pictures. Finally, ICBC accepted the claim and he is able to get the car repaint by paying $300 deductible.

The black spots on my car are numerous but tiny. You won't be able to see from a far distance, especially I didn't wash my car for almost a month. So I'm a bit reluctant to file the claim (because I don't really want to pay the $300 deductible). My Mom is also reluctant to file the claim (she's more concerned that the paint job involved taking the body apart and if the bodyshop does not do a good job, the car will "fall apart" and never be as nice as before).
As the insurance is almost over, I finally took it to car wash and yeah..those spots became more visible now (without mixing with other dirt) and actually knowing the claim has a valid term of 2 years, I finally decided to file the claim.
The estimation is done in the North Van ICBC center. The staff there are curteous and not much questioning involved as I already linked my case to my coworker's case. As far as I know, there are already 10 people file the claim.
My estimated damage is $3xxx for the new paint job.

The next question is, should I fix it now or wait until next year when I activate the insurance again? And which bodyshop should I go?

After discuss with my Mom, I took the car to the bodyshop where we visited before. And the shop is nice enough to offer delivering the car back to my home with their own car plate/insurance when the car is ready. I don't need to worry about the expired car insurance.

Today, my car is all new and fresh and I'M LOVING IT!

Hm...how come my other car is not damaged so that it can get a new paint??? It is desperately in need of some body work...