Summary: Marcus is a nice guy, and when all was done the result was mostly good. Quality paint…read moreused. Challenges others mention with communication, timeliness, attention to detail, etc. we faced, too. If not on a tight timeline or you are good with actively coordinating and following up a lot, you will likely be happy. They also don't work weekends.
Our realtor recommended Marcus to have the majority of our townhome interior painted in preparation to sell. He connected us via email on Monday the 16th and spoke about having Marcus come by on Wednesday afternoon to do an estimate. I never heard back from Marcus, but presumed (possibly unfairly) that he would be coming by to do the analysis an hour before our carpet vendor was supposed to come. The time slot came and went, so I called the CertaPro number and got his cell number to call Marcus directly. He said that he totally forgot to put it into his calendar and was very apologetic, then said he was picking up his truck and would head down to our place to be there in about 30 minutes. He did show up later (after the carpet guy had gone), did his analysis and made some good recommendations.
The next day we had an invoice to review. I asked some questions in a response and got answers the next day, which included how long the job would take (3-4 days), how soon they could start, etc. I asked a few more questions, and by the 21st I let him know we were ready to start ASAP.
After that, we got no response until after I emailed again on the 23rd to see if he missed my original. He noted that he was out of town but would be returning that afternoon. I thanked him for the heads up and waited for him to confirm a start date. Again, we were trying to get things going to put our place on the market to sell, and I was also trying to coordinate a start date with the carpet crew because they needed to wait until the paint had dried before coming. I followed up again on the 25th to get status and he said they could start on that Friday the 27th. In my response, I then asked to confirm that he would be done by Monday evening since he had said the job should take 3-4 days, and scheduled the carpet crew to start on Tuesday given that understanding. No response.
I emailed him after that to make sure I could get him a key to our place and we made the exchange (I offered to meet him somewhere, but he kindly came to our new place the evening of the 26th to pick it up). On the 27th he emailed me asking for project status, and I told him that he can start and let him know that the carpet guys would be coming on Tuesday, and asked if that sounded good. No response. On the 29th, I asked for status on the painting and confirmation that they'd finish by Monday evening. I texted him as well, just to be safe. At that point he mentioned that they don't work weekends, so they had only done one day of painting so far.
At that point I had to scramble to connect with the carpet company to see if they could reschedule their start to Thursday, and they kindly did so. Marcus's crew continued through Wednesday and the carpet was then installed on Thursday and Friday. Marcus said he would be coming in that Saturday morning to do touchups as needed after the carpet install, which was great because we both knew that there would be some need for that.
I went there myself on Saturday the 4th in the morning to pick up a couple of items and see the new paint and carpet, and observed that none of the outlet faceplates had been replaced, there was a dent on the closet door upstairs, there were numerous scuffs, and some things had not been painted. I took a bunch of pictures and then sent an email to Marcus at noon with a list of items and asking him if he was planning on addressing all of those that day. Our realtor also went and saw the same things because he wanted to schedule a photographer, but was concerned that it might not be done in time. Marcus never responded to my text or email, so I texted again on Monday and he said they would be coming over that morning to address the concerns. My realtor started sending photos and reaching out on our behalf as well.
After our house was cleaned on the afternoon of the 6th, our realtor went back the next day for a photo session and again some painting was needed and there were still faceplate issues. I reached out to Marcus that day via email and he called me the next day to say he would come back again to do the final touchups before our open house. When I went back weeks later I saw that some plates were still missing, some had no screws, and Ethernet cables had been torn out of the rooms.
After all of this the end results for about $2800 were ok, and Marcus is a really nice guy. He did mention he didn't do the final walkthrough because he was out of town, it was a new crew, and the lead on the job was very busy. These are just the challenges that we faced with our experience and hopefully we were an outlier within his customer base.