AMERICAN PAINTING

REVIEW OF AMERICAN PAINTING I met with Marcelo Bermann of American Painting back in December 2022. He said he had no team and preferred working alone. I hired him to refinish my kitchen cabinets and to paint the kitchen. Work began in February 2023. He did a good job painting the portion of the ceiling that was acoustic, as well as the door leading to the garage. Both were painted white. However, when it came to the rest of the walls and ceiling, there were problems. First, I wanted to paint samples on the walls to see what the color would look like in various places in the room and in various lighting. Marcelo insisted on painting a piece of paper and moving it around the room, which doesn’t give you a sense of how the color would look on the walls under certain conditions. Secondly, after he said he was finished painting, I could see places where the old paint, which was a light mocha, was coming through, making some walls look pink instead of Grilled Cheese. He touched up the walls; but after drying, you could still see places where the old paint was showing through and where the walls met the cabinets was uneven. The cabinet refinishing was a complete fiasco. From the start I thought the doors should be taken off; but Marcelo said they didn’t need to be. The upper cabinets were in pretty good shape already; but still needed to be cleaned, sanded, stained and finished. Within a matter of several hours, Marcelo was done and taking pictures, which I expressly told him I did not want posted on the internet. The next morning, I was able to see that the cabinets had not been cleaned or sanded and that the finish was bumpy and uneven. The inside of the cabinet doors were not refinished at all. I shared my concerns with Marcelo who assured me he could fix the issues with a sponge similar to a Scotch Bright scrub sponge. The problems remained. When it came to the bottom cabinets, which needed the most work, Marcelo did little or nothing in terms of prep work. They were not cleaned, sanded or stained. He simply applied a finish over dirt, scratches and stains and in some places he did nothing. In addition, the base at the bottom of the cabinets still had glue on them from the old vinyl flooring and needed to be sanded, stained and finished as well. I texted my concerns with pictures to Marcelo and scheduled a meeting with him to show him exactly why I was dissatisfied with the work. I shined a bright light on the lower cabinets so he could see what I was talking about. I asked questions like “what did you use to clean the cabinets,” to which he hesitated then answered, “I didn’t want to wet them too much.” This surprised me because I think a degreaser or lacquer thinner would be used, not water. It was difficult getting Marcelo to focus on the work he did. Instead, he kept talking about me being “upset” and not “trusting” him, despite my many attempts to redirect his attention to the cabinets. I finally gave him two options: either take the doors off and redo the work correctly this time or refund me ½ of what I paid him. I clearly stated that I would prefer him to correct the issues; but he said he would be too uncomfortable knowing I didn’t trust him, so he chose to refund me 1/2. I was still out quite a bit of money because I had to hire a professional to redo all the cabinets. This professional took all of the doors off and masked the cabinets so I didn’t have to remove anything. He then proceeded to thoroughly clean the cabinets and the doors (including inside doors) with lacquer thinner before meticulously sanding to remove dirt, scratches, stains and the stuff Marcelo put on. I was amazed by the beauty of the natural wood grains, which I hadn’t seen in quite a while. In subsequent days he carefully stained the cabinets and doors and ended with an application of satin urethane finish. He also scraped the glue off of the cabinet base, sanded, stained and finished them as well. Lastly, this professional repainted my kitchen Grilled Cheese using Aristoshield indoor/outdoor satin enamel and I am loving it! I initially was not going to write a review, just leave well enough alone and move on. But when I saw that Marcelo had gone ahead and posted pictures of my upper cabinets on his Google My Business page anyway with the caption “Just finished a cabinet refinishing job for a wonderful customer who appreciates good work,” I knew I needed to write a honest review because the pictures and the caption are selective and deceptive. The work was not “good” and I did not “appreciate” all of the hassle, time and expense this experience caused me. I don’t want anyone choosing to use American Painting based on deceptive photos and captions. The old saying, “A picture speaks a thousand words,” is only true if you are taking close ups! I appreciate Marcelo as a person; but his work in my kitchen does not measure up to his claims of expertise and years of experience in painting.

Good. It took a bit longer than initial expected because some screen doors were hard to get the rust controlled and there was rain. Marcelo was there most of the time. He had 2 employees working with him and those two guys were very friendly and professional.

Mr. Bermann was only showing up to work on the house for about 2 - 4 hours a day. I had a new stamped, colored concrete patio in the back that was less than 6 months old. It was not protected, and there were paint chips and water with dissolved paint in it covering the patio. I had to clean it off myself. After 3 days of this, I asked him not to come back to finish the job, and I hired another company instead.