Hired this contractor to paint our oak cabinets the week of July 9th 2018. Here we are August 21st 2018 and I'm still picking up the pieces. Absolutely horrible experience from start to finish. Here is a breakdown:
Timeliness:
Job was to start Monday, could not start until tuesday. "I'll be there between 8:30 and 9 Tuesday" turned into well after 10am. Same thing Wednesday - showed up over an hour late. I made it clear numerous times that the job must be done by friday, we were told no problem. Showed up on time Thursday to "complete" the final finish coat, left at 12:30 for the day claiming to be "done" with the paint and only need to do final assembly Friday. Never checked his work and there were MAJOR issues, drips, completely missed areas, etc. Called him immediately, he asked for photos which were sent. He did not return, which meant they retouched everything friday and assembled with wet pieces. Fridays result was horrible, fingerprints in wet paint everywhere, major retouches needed. Came back sunday to finish. Grade for timeliness= F
Workmanship:
After Bill double checked everything we found two full pages of paint blemishes, stripped cabinets (more on that later), misaligned doors, bad paint lines, etc. We made lists and asked him to sign them to acknowledge the issues later as we truly thought we might be in small claims court later with this guy. I'm happy to provide these signed lists or photos for anyone who would like to look at them. After he left on friday these guys WASHED THEIR PAINT BRUSHES IN OUR KITCHEN SINK. There are two working hose bibs outside, both plumbed with hot water, but I guess the kitchen sink was easier and closer. We found paint residue all over as we were preparing our dinner later that night. Unbelievable, it blows my mind that a "professional painter" would even think this is an acceptable option. Grade for workmanship =F
Mechanical ability:
There were SO MANY stripped screws in our hardwood cabinets. I watched them break off our lazy susan door in front of my own eyes after the crew couldn't figure out how they went back together. Our hardwood cabinets will never be the same. We insisted that Bill bring in an actual carpenter to fix these issues which he did. His name was John and he did a fine job fixing anything we found. John stated himself that the workmanship he saw was horrible. He laughed right out loud at a few of them. John and I had a couple beers on the back deck while Bill fixed the remaining paint issues, John was a good dude. Grade for John = A. Grade for Bill's mechanical ability = F
Billing:
We were given a verbal quote to paint an accent wall in our home. when he handed me the final bill it was 40% higher. He backed down pretty quickly when we called him out, it was pretty slimey. We also asked him for a discount on the entire job for all of the issues we encountered. He agreed (more on that later). Grade for billing = F
Follow up:
We have since found 3 more doors that were stripped that came loose later after some use. Bill asked for pictures which we sent him. We also found numerous other paint issues. We sent pictures of those as well. He promised two weeks ago to check his schedule and give us a date to come back... we never heard back. Finally I pushed again and he claimed he was "screwed out of money", and that we should "put some screws in." After a fiery exchange on the phone about how he was too much of a coward to make that claim to my face when I wrote him the check and that he looked me right in the eye and promised to take care of anything else we found, I made it clear that he was not welcome on our property and that I would fix these cabinet and paint issues myself. I have completed these last cabinet and paint repairs at a level of quality far superior to anything Bill was able to provide. It cost me additional money out of my own pocket and time, but the frustration it saved by not dealing with Bill was worth it. Grade for follow up = F
In summary - Bill ever shows his face at my home in the future it will be handled by the state police. I made this very clear to him. If I could give zero stars it would be absolutely appropriate.
***Notice that the only other Yelp review for this business is from himself, giving himself 5 stars. This is a clear violation to yelp guidelines. I have reported this to yelp*** read more