I write this review with a very heavy heart. I feel like documenting my experience is important,…read moreso that other people know what they might be getting into in the future.
First of all Costas is a great guy. Friendly and fun to talk to. His son Tony helps him out, and is really nice too. And his 87 year old father, Tony Sr., helps out too.
They did various projects for me over the course of about six weeks, most of which turned out pretty well.
The problem came when they went to paint a room, and this is where it got bad.
I'm no fan of sloppy painting, and I told Costas this many times. "I don't want any wall paint on the varnished woodwork, and I want everything taped." He promised me repeatedly that they are very neat painters, and that they will tape everything.
I repeated this conversation with Costas about four times, over the weeks leading up to when they were going to paint. Finally, the day before they were going to paint, I talked about it again. "Not a single drop of paint on that varnished woodwork, Costas." And promised to be neat, and to tape everything.
After their first coat, I went in on Saturday to examine their work so far.
Nothing was taped. Not a single piece of tape anywhere in the entire room.
And there was paint on all the woodwork.
The edge of every varnished wood window frame had visible brush strokes of gray wall paint, some of them a half inch wide. There were little splatters here and there, some on the fronts of the window frames. There was paint on the smoke detector. Paint on the thermostat. Paint on a wall plate. Paint on the wooden fan blades. Paint on the black metal fan stanchions. Paint on the baseboard heaters.
I couldn't believe it.
I finally got a hold of Costas on Sunday, and at first he told me that they were on schedule to finish on Monday. I asked him about the paint on the woodwork. He said, "I told the guys to tape, but they didn't listen. They thought they could be careful and cut in against the woodwork without getting paint on it."
Well, obviously, they couldn't be that careful, since there's paint everywhere. And the woodwork is ruined.
But in that phone call, he promised to make it right. He'd save the woodwork, and clean it up, with Goof Off paint remover. "It will come right off," he promised.
"Won't that take the varnish off the woodwork?", I asked.
"No, it will be fine. That paint will come right off."
I decided to give him a chance to make it right.
Monday morning, I was meeting some other contractors at the house. I heard the guys working up in the painted room, but hadn't had a chance to see the results. After the meeting, Costas arrived.
"Oh, Jason, good thing you're here," Costas said. "I tried to call you this morning, but I couldn't reach you. Come upstairs, so I can show you our progress."
He pointed to one of the window frames and said, "See, the Goof Off ended up taking off some of the varnish, but don't worry, we found a way to fix it."
Then he pointed to a second window frame and said, "See, we painted it to match, and it looks great."
"Painted it? What do you mean you painted it?"
"We found a color of paint that matches the woodwork."
And I took a closer look at my window woodwork, which I suddenly realized had been painted a solid brown color.
He had taken one of the wood mullions down to the paint store and had them scan it with their color match system. They mixed up a solid brown paint that "matched" the color of the varnished woodwork.
And then he painted the entire window frame, including the sill, brown.
I now had brown trim where my beautiful, 25-year-old woodwork used to be.
Brown. Not even a color that I would have picked if I wanted my windows painted.
"Costas, you just ruined my woodwork!" shouted.
"No, it matches," he insisted.
"But you didn't ask me if I wanted my woodwork painted!"
"I tried to call you this morning, but I couldn't reach you."
"So you went ahead and painted the woodwork brown without my permission?"
Fortunately, he had only gotten to one window (out of 8 in the room) before I stopped him. I looked around the room and saw masking tape on the walls around the other frames, ready for brown paint. Now they tape?
At that point, I told him to pack up his stuff and leave. I had already paid him for the remainder of this paint work on Friday.
He protested, and said he'd fix it, and strip the brown paint off, or rebuild the window with new woodwork. Of course, the woodwork was 25 years old, so a rebuild would never match the other windows.
And they packed up their stuff and left.
So, fair warning: Be very firm with your instructions, and monitor their work closely, step-by-step.
Maybe, with some careful guidance, True North can do some good work.
But they're apt to ignore repeated instructions, do inappropriate things without permission, and destroy 25-year-old woodwork.
Costas and his family are really nice people, though.
