Ambassador Painting

Ken Suh was recommended to us by the seller of our house, who had used him. (Ken is the owner of the company, who bids and "supervises" jobs.) His bid was one of the better ones on price. However, it did raise a red flag when my wife met him, and thought he seemed a little crazy. For example, he said something like, "You are not interviewing me, I am interviewing you to see if I want to work for you." Our gut said, this guy is going to be a nightmare. Unfortunately, we did not go with our gut. In terms of the work, it was of mediocre quality at best. It's not the kind of job that you see and think right away, wow, this is a terrible paint job, but as you live with it, you come to respect the work less and less. Some of the walls and ceilings were okay, others have quite obvious and visible roller marks. At the switchplates, you can see that the plates were not removed and the surfaces sanded, and so when the electrician put on smaller plates, you can now see lines outlining the old plates. Moreover, Ken Suh's crew worked sloppy. They got paint all over the place. (The larger globs we have been able to remove. The fine mist of white paint all over our hall bathroom's wooden door, we probably will never be able to remove. There were two huge problem with Ken Suh beyond the mediocre work: (1) He was the highest maintenance contractor I've ever dealt with. I spent, literally, hours on the phone with him over the course of two weeks. He even yelled at my wife; and (2) he made so much of, and made so many promises about, his "attention to detail," that it made his utter lack of attention to detail (see above) all the more galling. Other noteworthy facts to recount about this job: 1. Ken was incredibly eager to promise to do lots of little things at no extra cost, at the time that he thought I was likely to hire him for exterior painting work also. The moment that was no longer on the table, he started trying to (over)charge me for everything. 2. I paid Ken $200 more than the estimate, because he did do a couple of things not originally contemplated. (Of course, he also did not do things he said he was going to do, like paint the trim in many places.) Nevertheless, I did not want a &$*& fight with him, and he was demanding $6,000 or more. I thought I was being nice to give him anything over the bid. He repaid my kindness by taking my check, walking straight out my door, and refusing to come back to complete punchlist items. In the end, I came to think of Ken as a con-artist of sorts: a guy who talks this huge game, and delivers little. It was not a complete con -- I got my mediocre paint job -- but he certainly did not provide anything like the promised performance. I would highly suggest that people considering this contractor choose another one.