Let me start by saying that I've done a lot of painting, both interior and exterior. I've had…read morethree fixers, the first and third of which I painted myself, and the second one was a nightmare job done by a 'professional' painter. On top of that, the year before I graduated, in 1985, I spent the summer as a paint inspector on the Golden Gate Bridge. However, I just turned 70 this year, and three sides of our house are stucco, which I was not at all in the mood to try to paint myself.
So instead, I spent several days researching painters in the area, and came up with 9 candidates. My plan was to interview two at a time, and if the first two didn't work out, I'd call the next two. My first choice based on reviews was 'Candidate 1' (so as not to embarrass), followed by Angel's Pro Painting, and we were 90+% sure we were going to go with Candidate 1. C1 came out to look at the house, take measurements, look at the dry rot, etc. He spent maybe 20 minutes with us, and sent us his bid many days later. After that, we got together with the owner of Angel's, Luis, and he spent close to an hour and a half going over the house, in particular the dry rot that I had pre-scoped prior to having the house looked at. When we got Luis's estimate, it was night and day from C1. C1 had missed half the dry rot we discussed (and his contract was muddy about which repairs were included), used an inferior paint with no warranty even though we said we wanted Sherwin Williams, and had written up kind of an antagonistic contract that spelled out more of the limitations of what he was willing to do than what he was going to do for us. Luis's bid missed a few minor items, but basically got the main work down, including both a list of all of the trim and siding to be replaced as well as photos of the damaged areas circled in red. He gave us three packages of Sherwin Williams paint levels to choose from, and otherwise wrote a very clean contract with a 4-stage progress payment schedule: 1) $1,000 down payment, 2) 28% at completion of dry rot repairs, 3) 40% at completion of main wall color painting, and 4) a 32% holdback until completion of full painting and client approval. I'd like to add at this point that my husband and I are both civil engineers (highways) that have spent a LOT of time in construction, and that is how we ran our projects, paying out at completion of certain items/phases of our jobs. So we were thrilled at that. Looking at his detailed bid and reflecting on how much time he spent with us when first going over our house, picking Luis was a no-brainer.
I've learned never to assume anything, but I had a very strong feeling that his work would be as detailed and thorough as his initial visit and his subsequent bid were. I was not disappointed. His cousin Gabriel came out to replace the dry rot on the first day, and his cuts were dead on accurate. Him and another Gabriel (Gabriel 2) caulked and prepped the entire house for the next day of painting, and stayed late to finish up. Next came the masking, and they covered everything, and did so very accurately, especially around the windows. This time Luis's brother Christian was in charge, and he was a delight to work with. Every day after the crew left, my husband and I would each inspect the work, and were both very impressed. Once the painting started, I got very excited. I had spent a month figuring out the paint scheme, and I really wanted to watch it go on the house. Fortunately for the painters, they had the doors masked and taped so tightly that I was trapped inside the house and unable to view the work (and bug them) until the end of the day. But wow! Worth the wait. Luis originally was not going to paint a side garage door and our back door due to the materials they were made of, but then threw them in as the painting started, for no extra charge. He also made extra work for his crew by suggesting that they paint the downspouts the trim color instead of the main body color, which takes more time because you have to let the body dry, then mask it off around the spouts. Great choice, though, because the spouts looked like accents in areas that were mainly body color. That Luis has a good eye.
I'd also like to say that I have a bit of OCD when it comes to straight lines on paint jobs. When I painted the interior of my first house, I used to paint the ceilings white, then use one of those tiny watercolor brushes to draw a straight line where the ceiling and walls met. Well, Luis and his guys did the same thing, except with big fat paintbrushes. I watched Luis do some touch-ups on the last day, and I couldn't believe how perfect his lines were.
Bottom line, Luis and his crew were pretty much the best painters I've ever watched. I fully expected to do a few touch-ups after they left, but nah. All good.
On top of all of that, Luis is a charmer, and so easy to work with, as are his entire crew. You could not go wrong with these Angels.
