Student Painters

We contracted Student Painters to do a single coat of paint on the house and the decks, with scraping, sanding, caulking, and priming, for about $4000, which included an upgrade to Sherwin Williams Duration paint. The prep work was not done, and we found them often painting over bare wood. I had talked to them when they did the estimate and each day when the painters arrived that the bare wood very much needed prep, since that's where the paint had peeled from before. I was told each time that the prep was being done. I admit that the color difference between the original coat and the new coat required a second coat, which we did not know when we signed the contract for a single coat. But the painters completed the first coat and said they were done, despite the fact that the original gray paint was showing through the new brown paint, several areas of the textured finish did not get paint in the indentation, the seams of many of the trim boards were painted, the decks were hastily done with not enough deck finish, and the bottom step of the deck was painted the house color, not the deck color. I should have taken a day to do my own walk through before meeting with the supervisor and pointed out all of this, but I neglected to do so. We had a light hail storm three days after the job was complete, and paint peeled off the some of the places where it was put on over bare wood. I called them back to the house and was told that the company was not responsible for weather related damage. I agreed to contract for a second coat for an additional $2000. When they came back for that coat, the prep work was done and the bare wood scraped and primed. But there were still spots where the original gray had not been painted at all, and the areas that were primed got a single coat of paint and not a second coat. The deck got a second coat on the rails and floor but not on the vertical slats where it was most lacking. When my wife did the walk through with the job supervisor, she was told that she and the supervisor both needed to have "realistic" expectations of the quality of the job. For $6000, my realistic expectation was that it would be the professional job I came to expect when getting the original bid, not a job that looked like the primary objectives were to finish quickly and cheaply. The supervisor fixed a few bad spots but indicated that that was all he would do. I'd already spent another $200 on a gallon each of the three colors of Sherwin Williams paint and deck finish, and we'll finish up the job ourselves. Their initial bid came in much cheaper than the other two bids I got, but it wound up costing me as much as the next highest bid. The only way I would hire Student Painters again is if I also hired a general contractor to oversee the work and point out the shortfalls in the process and the quality. The supervisors did not practice quality control and too often made excuses for the lack of quality in the work. The guys and girls who came to paint were very friendly and I appreciated their upbeat attitudes. They just apparently didn't have experience painting and had no guidance on how to do the job right. Pay the extra money up front and hire a company with experienced, quality conscious painters, and professional supervisors who ensure team management and quality control.