Dali Painting & Renovations

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Work went exceptionally well. I was very concerned in the initial phase of bidding the work and establishing the scope of the work since the contractor worked on a verbal basis and seemed to be vague of some of the aspects of the work. As an engineer, I sent a long email addressing all my concerns to various parts of his proposal for explanation and clarifications. He did not respond to the email; however, he returned to the house and addressed everything that I spoke with him at the time. Work started with two workers inside the home working on the windows. The main worker spoke good English and was very thorough and area was cleaned up at the end of each day. I did not stay at the house while the work was being performed and felt comfortable enough to leave the key to the gate and allowed them access to the house while I was away. No issues from that standpoint. I was even able to go out of town for Easter weekend while work outside the house continued.
Main worker, Victor was very good and mentioned additional things that I might want addressed and his work performance was above my expectation and seemed to put in extra effort to ensure I was pleased with work being done. The owner was not there on daily visits but was available by phone, although brief in conversations. If there was any big issue he was very responsive.
Once lead paint removal permit was obtained and posted, porch ceiling was pressure washed, buffed and or sanded depending on how bad the chipping of the paint. Primer coat was placed with additional sanding to ensure even coat
followed by 2 top coats. On this, I did have to ask that it be redone as upon first review the paint was not even due to visible layers where sand to wood was buffing were visible. The work was redone until satisfactory.
Work on porch deck was extensive as once old boards were removed, a split beam was discovered and many of the main beams needed to be sistered (a new board nailed to beam to reinforce and allow for porch boards to nail into something solid. Many of old beams had soft top faces, so nailing porch board into this section would have been a good long term fix). In my opinion, it is important to point out that upon the recommendation by the contractor that this work was done (with a very extremely reasonable cost adder) to the porch beams to reinforced before placing the new decking instead of proceeding without fixing
the deck. I counted 90 boards that I thought needed to be replaced and the contractors replaced 123 (again reasonable cost) based on rotten/damaged boards or boards that were cut and spliced and were not the full length of the porch (perpendicular to the house wall, so board should have all been ~6' long, but some were cut at ~4' length and replaced with ~2' long replacement sometimes not even same width board. Point being that old work was poorly done). All this was fixed so that all porch boards were full length and matched width (except for occasional instances where thin board had to be used to match new boards
with old good boards. Note that the only way to prevent that would have been to replace entire deck). I was very pleased with the outcome of the deck.
In sanding and working on the columns (9 in total) 2 of them had rotten sections. One at the top had 2 foot worth of rot which was in the area of gingerbread connecting to the column. Workers expertly supported the column in that area and cut out the damaged section and put in new column piece of solid cedar and caulked and bonded to make look as good as new. Note they cut column at 45 deg cut to prevent flat spot for water to seep in and cause additional rot in the future. Other column was rotten at the bottom, so another 2 ft was cut and replaced. Caulked, bondo applied to make seamless replacement once sanded
smooth and repainted. Many nicks in columns were filled and painted. Addition work change for this was $125 per column which is I.M. O. very reasonable cost considering new columns would cost ~$700 range. Contractor understood what could be
repaired and what needed to be replaced.
Gingerbread trim had many gaps along its length where it met with ceiling, all these preexisting issues were caulked at no additional charge and now no gaps between boards. I was previously concerned that this could be access for
termites, so I was very pleased with this work. Fascia board that was below porch board had rotten section where board curved around porch which was originally plywood that was slotted on the backside to make the bend (porch is
at front of house and wraps around down the side of the house. It's an "L" shaped porch). The initial replacement by the contractor was of hardy board and it was crack in 5 places. I spoke with Mr. Dali and he found a more flexible version and was on site for the replacement which turned out perfectly. Edges of old and new board were caulked and sanded smooth.
Mr. Dali was very professional and very pleasant to work with and very eager to ensure I was pleased with the work being done. I felt very comfortable adding things to the scope of work as his adder prices were very fair and I was not being taken advantage of at any time. I did get a price quote to paint the entire kitchen which was in my opinion a high price, so I opted not to use him.
His work is extremely good and for the price, I agree it is worth it. If you have lead paint issues then he is a must. I had 3 other companies bid for lead abatement/removal before Dali painting and of those 3 companies there was one offer by what I expected to be the worst of the bunch (based on professionalism) gave a price of $14,000 for much less work. Overall I got a bid of $6,900 to do the original scope of work and paid $8,090.00 by adding the following:
123 boards replaced instead of 90 boards
2 Column repairs
1 additional window inside sand/paint
Overhang in the back of the house sanded and painted
2 rows of siding replaced on the garage
Small section of siding above the porch scraped/sanded/repainted

Exterior painting.

It took a really long time to complete the job. It took over a month. They never gave a time line for when the work would be finished, however I felt my house wasn't a priority to get finished. They did the work well though and were very good at matching the colors we wanted.

Painting quality was very poor. I was not there to oversee the job - probably would have been fine if I was. Mr dali was very good about getting everything I identified as a problem fixed, but, in general the workmanship was shoddy.

I have been satisfied with them. They seemed very professional. They finished the work quickly and didn't drag it out. I had no problems over the contract. Everything just went well and I have had no problems with them. They are not the cheapest. I would use them again in the future if I needed to.