Tom The Painter

Tom the Painter in Fox Lake, IL quoted us a price in June to repair and paint our garage door, Each time he was supposed to come, he had an excuse for not showing up. One was that he was busy with a big job and another was he fired a worker for not showing up to jobs, He wanted to reserve the job for himself and then kept putting us off. He should have been honest and just said he couldn't do the job so we could have found another painter instead of keep making excuses. We do not recommend him even if he quotes a lower price,

Tom was excellent. He was very accommodating and easy to work with. Excellent attention to detail and great finished product. His carpenter did a great job of repairing split and rotted cedar boards. It was a positive experience. I would hire Tom and his team again.

Tom did an excellent job

Tom was very professional when he showed up to give us the quote. We hired him for his professionalism and the way he interacted with us. His quote was also reasonable so we went with him. That's was the best part of the interaction. After a few delays, when the first workman showed up to replace the wood, he was barely able to communicate and didn't have a generator or battery operated power tools. If I wasn't home, he would not have been able to use his power tools... He finished his work and a few days/weeks later Tom showed up with another person to finish the rest of the job. As part of the quote, I had asked for recauking the entire house and they only recaulked the garage doors, the windows where they replaced the wood and the entry and patio door. They actually did not recaulk how most people recaulk... for the doors/windows they actually caulked, they caulked over the existing caulk so the work looks like crap... (I'll add pics to the review). When I contacted Tom, he felt that they did a professional job and would not even come look at the workmanship for a month and a half because he was busy... Wow! That's something! Needless to say, we'll have to get this resolved through other means but in the meantime, I'd suggest that you stay away from him. Good presentation and horrible execution.

We have hired Tom for this job and that of painting our fence before so we did not hesitate to contact him again for our deck and porch restaining. Tom came out before staining day to powerwash the deck and porch and to prep the surfaces. His crew was here for several hours. Without asking, Tom's crew made minor repairs to our railing where it had pulled away from other railings, and where a piece of wood had cracked. We greatly appreciated that. Tom also brought out staining chips that matched the color of our fence, which is now a reddish composite fence. We decided to go with the previous redwood colored stain as we didn't like the new stain options. He used a different product than our last product, which held up for six years like a champ. On staining day, Tom and his crew arrived on time and quickly got to work. When they finished, everything looked fantastic. I did call Tom out later to ask about how the stain didn't appear to have taken everywhere, and he came out to look. He assured me the stain had taken, and because of the nature of the stain and how they power washed down to the bare wood, that was the correct look. He was willing to restain the spots again but added that the stain was not designed for another application and that it might peel. I accepted his professional assessment and decided to leave the stain as is. Our deck and porch look fantastic. No mess remained behind.

I highly recommend Tom. We hired him to paint the exterior of our home. He and his crew did a spectacular job. He is punctual and very professional. He was extremely meticulous about the prep work and cleaning up after the job. He clearly takes great pride in his work. You will not be disappointed if you hire Tom.

Tom painted the entire house, including garage and doors, windows, cabinets. The job turned out excellent. We decided to hire him due to the good comments we saw on Angie's list. He didn’t disappoint us and now I cannot recommend him enough. Tom did an estimation in the evening and gave us the quote late night same day. He is always very patient and courteous to listen to our needs and gave us good advice. He also replied emails and txt messages promptly. He tried very hard to finish the project as I expected and he made it as promised, even ahead of time. In order to do that, he even did some prep work in evening hours all by himself. His crew did a professional job, neat and organized. They were very careful in preparation and there was no paint splatter or drips on the new carpet. Nice job done. A pleasure to work with him.

I recently had Tom and his team paint my parent's house, and they did an absolutely excellent job. From start to finish, Tom's team was very helpful, patient, informative, and respectful. The quality of work was top notch. He completed extensive exterior wood repair/replacements, thorough surface preparation, and full exterior paint including panels, fascia and trim. He took extra care in protecting our house and surroundings from the active work. In addition, Tom repaired some additional items at no additional cost and he helped us make good long-term decisions for the exterior of the house. My parent's house looks fantastic all due to Tom's high quality work. I would highly recommend him!

I had used Tom before to paint the outside of my house and do some repair work inside. This time the work was all inside and the quality that I would expect was no different. Tom arranged a time to come over in the evening to review the work and provided an estimate within a day. Given that I was getting other work done inside the house, the contractor suggested that I wait to have the painting done until they were finished. Tom was very patient with my while I explained the situation and he was upfront that he may be starting outside projects and I would be delayed. This was perfectly understandable to me but as it happened, with the cold weather, everything lined up. Tom was able to come the last few days the contractors were there and work on areas they had already finished. He and his team, repaired and painted a very large area in only 3 days. They moved all of the heavy furniture and covered everything to avoid any spills or mess. I even added on at the last minute a request to paint a closet and he was able to complete. All the work was done professionally and in a very efficient amount of time. He is very responsive to any questions and very up front on scheduling. I cannot recommend him enough.

Tom was great and he and his crew did a great job,both with the painting and keeping the area clean during the job and cleaning up after the job was done. His pricing was in line with other quotes I obtained. I would definitely use him again.

Very well. Beautiful job. Will re-hire on a regular basis to keep wood looking new.

Got a call saying saying that he cannot make the time agreed and asked for another day. So we agreed for a different time, different day. No one showed up again - no one called before this no-show, no one called post the scheduled time explaining why he could not make it. Waste of time.

We decided to go with Tom's team for our whole house exterior paint project b/c we were so pleased with the level of quality on the deck staining job from 2 yrs ago and how professional he was from a business perspective. OVERVIEW: As with the last experience, Tom was VERY punctual with EVERY appointment he made with us. Tom had given us an old estimate on the whole exterior paint from 2yrs ago, but he came by again to reassess and promptly provided a revised estimate (pretty similar) the same evening. He gave us one estimate for the paint-only portion of the project while he outsourced the carpentry repair to one of his family member's business. The two main reasons we decided to go with Tom is because of: 1) the quality of his team's work and attention to detail (they painstakingly HAND BRUSH the whole exterior pain job so that the paint really seeps into the wood and hopefully lasts longer); 2) his business professionalism (Tom's very organized, efficient, and a great communicator). PERFORMANCE: As I've mentioned in a prior review, Tom's team may not be your cheapest option, but we've found them worth every penny! He and his team show up right on time (8am) and often times earlier and work efficiently throughout each day. We have a 3000 sq ft all-wood home plus walkout basement, deck, attached garage, and it took his team 1 day for general powerwash and prepwork. This identified all the wood problem areas for the carpenter. We were not committed to using his recommended brother's company for the carpentry repair, but I wish I had a carpenter of my own on hand ready to take on the repair work. B/c I didn't have a lot of time to compare various local carpenters, we decided to go with his brother's company. His brother was NOT as reliable as Tom's company. He wasn't bad in the end, but we managed to get through all the carpentry work with a few bumps in the road (some bad communication, some reworking of trim repair details, etc.). I'd give his brother's company a B-. I recommend going with your own carpenter for your whole house paint project if working with Tom. The painting job itself took 7 days (including one day that was cut short due to rainy weather). Tom and 2 of his painters were prompt, cheery, hard-working, and detailed in their work. Tom especially takes extra care around many of the detailed prep work and touchup's himself. We did walkthrough's throughout the time (often at end of day) to go over completed sides of the house as well as to talk about what the plan was for the next day. If the job was going to take longer or there was inclement weather to be planned around, we talked about it together, so that almost NOTHING was a surprise in working with Tom's team, and I left with a feeling that he and his team were trying to execute the job as efficiently as possible without sacrificing attention to detail. Our house looks BRAND NEW! FINAL VERDICT... I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Tom the Painter if you're looking for a very detail-oriented (using hand brush only) and fairly-priced contractor who will develop a well-organized plan for you in delivering a paint project on time, with quality, and within original estimate costs. B/c of his small team, it seems they also have the nimbleness & flexibility to make adhoc adjustments around bad weather or other scheduling changes, so that they're often able to get ahead of schedule on your project or make up lost time (due to uncontrollable's like weather) by gaining time elsewhere. I'm so pleased with their job (they're 2 for 2 now for us!) that I don't need to shop around for other painters anymore for our future projects : ) THANK YOU, TOM THE PAINTER!!

I must say that I am a very Happy Customer! Tom and his crew did an AWESOME JOB, met my expections 100%. We are so pleased with the paint job. They totally transformed our home. They painted the whole exterior of our home and the door. I highly recommend Tom the Painter. Not only does he do an excellent job, but he is extremely cordial and pleasure to work with.

He was very meticulous. We hired him to do some repainting in the house before we moved in and then do some repainting in the condominium as we were getting ready to sell it. The previous owner of the condo do some really nice painting work with glossy and flat of the same color. He matched that perfectly to freshen up the living room area. He did an completely excellent job. we had some plastering that needed to be redone and he did a really good job with that. I couldn't even tell. You couldn't tell that anything had even been, that the plastering had been cracked or anything. He was great.

Excellent. Please refer to a previous extensive review by N. Rubin, 2701 Woodland Rd. Evanston, Illinois.

Tom's crew was very neat and friendly. They started the project when they said they would and worked every day until the project was completed one day early. This was a large project that impacted every room in our house so the continuous daily progress was very much appreciated. We were very pleased with the end result.

The work was EXCELLENT! I will definitely hire Tom and his team again. Tom's service was referred to me by a neighbor whose house was recently painted. The house looked amazing and I knew I was due for our house to be painted soon. I quoted with Tom as well as a couple other painters and the price was relatively the same. One difference was that Tom's pricing included repairs on the siding and trim. Tom and team diligently power washed the house to the notice of my neighbor who mentioned, "those guys were out there for hours." Tom's carpenter came out and worked with me on the specific requests I had and implemented other fixes. The work was exceptional. The detail work was handled with care. Finally when Tom painted the house, he finished in a couple days. I could not have been happier! The house looks great!

Tom came to my home on April 28 and as of May 17, no estimate had been received. I did reach out on May 8 to see if he was still interested in providing an estimate and was told that he needed more time to write up the description of the rooms.

Tom and his crew did a great job. They filled lots of knot holes and other damaged areas, caulked everything that needed to be caulked and did a very fine job. The Tudor style exterior has lots of trim boards, requiring lots of careful edge work. They did an excellent job. On the first day, we noticed that one of the colors we picked just didn't look right. Tom was very flexible, and charged a very fair price for repainting the spots that needed repainting. We are very pleased with the job and would definitely hire him again.

I had a favorable experience with him. His price was high. He did tell me that his price was going to be high. He does a super thorough job I think. I was just looking for somebody to slop some paint on. I didn?t accept the bid; I might just do it myself.

He was very nice to talk to. He was very appreciative and explanatory.  It was a very up and up business. He was very forthright. He wasn?t going to change his price because they two coat it, and did a lot of work that I didn?t see necessary.

The impression I got was that he did a very thorough job, and I wasn?t really looking for that. I would use him if it was half the price. He did too thorough of a job and he wasn?t going to change his ways. I knew what I was dealing with and he went through with the bid anyways, so I thought that was very complementary of him.

It was fine. He was good. We won’t really know for sure about the quality till this summer. He was responsive.

Tom arrived on time and did a great job. No muss, no fuss. Room looks great

Tom and his crew are great! My parents and their neighbor both used them, so I had a sense of comfort coming into the project. We have a brick house with wood trim. Tom painted all of the trim work, our garage door, windows and did some carpentry work. His brother also put three new fence posts in. They are very detailed and unlike other painters they take their time to do the job right. I highly recommend Tom!

They did a good job. They did a nice job. They were quick and they were good. I'd give them a high rating. Price was fair. They were professional. They did everything right. I'd give them A across the board.