SAM'S PAINTING & MORE

Exterior work was satisfactory. 

At that point in my bathroom renovation, the electrical work was not completed, so the available light from two small glass block windows was not sufficient to work with. Sam ran a single bulb work light with an extension cord to the bathroom. The initial sheetrock mudding was done a few days before and was not ready to paint. Sam speaks broken English, but I thought he understood that no sanding had been done or any touchup of imperfections. Sam agreed to complete the finishing work prior to priming and quoted me $450, which I thought was reasonable based on the prep work required. I signed the work order and left a new 5 gallon bucket of joint compound for that purpose, which he opened and utilized. After getting them started at 9:30am, I returned to work. At noon, I drove home to check on progress. The exterior had been completed and he had just finished spraying the bathroom with a heavy coat of primer, and 2 fans were running to dry the paint. Sam stated that they would be finished in a couple of hours after the primer dried and they put on the wall and ceiling paint. I returned to work again, and Sam indicated that he would call when they were finished and ready to leave, so I could pay them.  He called about 1:45pm and I drove home. My portable fan was running and the paint was still wet. I took a quick look at the bathroom, and in the dim light, it looked ok. The next day, the plumbing fixtures were installed, and on Saturday, the electrical work was completed. With the bathroom lighting providing illumination, all the flaws in the ceiling and walls were obvious. I called Sam back and told him that they needed to do some touchup work now that the lights were operational. He agreed to call me on Monday when he would come over and look at the problem areas.  He didn't call on Monday, so I called him and left a voice message, which he did not return. I called again on Tuesday, and he agreed to meet me at my house on Wednesday at 9:00am. When we looked at all the imperfections, his first excuse was that the light was bad, and he did not see them. Then he said that the sheetrock finisher should have done a better job, and it wasn't his fault. He offered to repaint the bathroom to cover the flaws, but I told him that most of the problems would still be obvious, especially on the ceiling, which was supposed to be a smooth finish. I told him that I had decided to do a knockdown finish on the ceiling to cover everything, but the walls and inside corners would require sanding. Sam said that he didn't do sheetrock finishing, but he had written on the workorder, "fix sheetrock".  I told him that I wouldn't have agreed to pay $450 just to paint a 7'x12' bathroom and 64 square feet of siding. I told him a professional painter would not have agreed to paint walls that were not ready, or would have warned me that the results would not be acceptable. At this point, his only resolution was an offer to repaint the bathroom after I am completely finished with construction, including sanding and spackling the flaws.