Frend's Painting

Frends painting did an excellent job.  Jamie responded to our request for an estimate promptly and gave us a detailed estimate.  The price was reasonable.  They came and did the work when they said they would.  First they power-washed the house, then did some minor repairs to some of the trim.  Then the entire house got a coat of solid stain.  The trim got two coats of paint.  The work was done neatly, no splashes or messes.  They stored their ladders and paint supplies in a neat stack behind the house every night.  The entire house was done in a week.  I have no complaints and would definitely recommend them - in fact, I have already recommended them to a friend.

We saw some houses Jamie and his crew painted in our neighborhood and were very impressed. So when it came time to paint our house, it was pretty much his job to lose. He gave a very competitive quote and answered all of our questions. We were careful to inquire about the legal status of his crew and were satisfied with that as well.
When the guy came do pressure wash the house he did a horrible job. I called Jamie to complain and he agreed it was poor and had a different person wash it again. This time it was great.
When the crew came to start painting we were surprised to learn Jamie would not be doing the painting. Disappointed, but ok. They got to work and the person doing the carpentry was working very quickly with rather poor,messy results. I asked him to slow down and redo some of the work. He pleasantly complied. We had this problem with rushing for most of the job and had to continue to check things carefully and ask for things to be redone as needed. It was always happily done with no complaints, but I'd have liked to not have to keep such a close eye on things.
The painting went better. A few problems with messiness and broken bush branches, but all in all good. The problem was that after primer and 2 coats paint on most of the house we noticed that there was still red showing through and a few places had cedar tannin bleed even after being recoated. We consulted with the paint company and learned that the paint applied was the second to the bottom in grade. Had a higher quality paint been used it probably would have covered well. For the tannin bleed, bare wood needed oil primer but latex primer was applied. We negotiated a price to apply a third coat of finish paint with the highest grade of paint after oil priming the side of the house that was not yet done and had a lot of replaced wood. After the higher grade paint was applied the house looks great.
Jamie likes the brush, not spray, and the results are quite good. We had to watch the quality and keep a close eye on things so they could be corrected, but the crew was always polite and professional and cheerfully did whatever we asked.

They were great, punctual, courteous and I would recommend them to anyone.