First Enterprise

It was a terrible experience.





It started out very good when I first met w/ Nick.  He was very professional when making the quote.  It went down hill from there.









Work was to commence in April. Due to weather, it began in May.  We have a ranch style house.  Job shouldn't have taken more than a week.  It was June 8th before work was "completed."







Didn't realize quote was for 1 coat of paint. (my fault for not reading contract closer).  One coat of paint did not cover.  Had to pay additional money to get paint to cover. 







They wrapped windows in visquine and taped house with paper and tape then left the job to work on another job.  One of the workers left here to spread mulch for one of our neighbors.  Had to "beg" them to please finish the front of the house so we wouldn't be embarrassed having plastic & paper stringing from the front of our house while our neighbors across the street had an open house for their graduating daughter.







They also ate their food in our front lawn which wasn't a problem but they would leave their garbage in our yard afterwards for me to pick up.  Very unprofessional.















Just noticed yesterday that some of the paint is peeling off of wood on deck (which is guaranteed for life) and more paper that wasn't removed is hanging off the house in the back yard.







 















 

See above.  I got scammed

Simply stated...The stain on the step to my back patio was flaking off and I needed some paint so that I could repaint it.  (His crew did not leave me with enough paint at the end of the project last year to even cover the small 2 step stairs that needed to be repainted). 
The contract states that there is a "3 year written guarantee of quality" and 10-15 years on the paint (Sherwin Williams "Duration").
I tried contacting Nick via phone (left a voicemail) on 6/21/12 - No response
I sent Nick an email on 6/26, referencing my voicemail - No response
I sent Nick another email on 7/1 referencing my voicemail and previous email - No response.
I found another phone number to contact Nick by doing a google search for "Nick Lopez First Enterprise" where I got a web site from Angies List which provided me with an alternate phone number. 
I contacted Nick at this phone number on 7/11/12 and I was able to talk to him about my warranty concern. 
I was not asking for him to provide a crew to come and fix the issue.  I simply wanted him to provide the paint so that I could do it myself. I figured that a quart would be enough for this small job
Nick agreed to provide the paint, but did not make it easy.  I ended up agreeing to go to the paint dealer myself and pick up the paint. I had to set up a time with him so that he would be available to answer his phone to provide approval to the store. I set up that time for 9:30 am on Friday 7/12/13 and he agreed to put the cost on his credit card.  When I went to the paint store they advised me that the smallest size that the Duration paint comes in is a gallon. The clerk at the store contacted Nick and told Nick that he was going to mix the paint for me.  The clerk clarified with Nick that Nick was going to pay for it with his credit card and then told him that he would call Nick back when he was finished mixing the paint so that we could complete the transaction.
When the clerk called Nick back he told Nick the total cost.  Nick was apparently surprised that the clerk had to mix a gallon of the paint (instead of a quart). Nick told the clerk that he would pay for $20 (approximate cost of a quart) and that I would have to pay for the rest (an additional $22) in order to cover his warranty issue. The clerk tried calling Nick back several times after I refused to pay for his warranty issue but Nick never answered the phone. The clerk said that he would continue trying to reach Nick in an effort to get the issue resolved and for me to check back with him later in the day.
When I contacted the store later that day they said that the issue had not been resolved but that Nick was outside their store at that time. Since I was very close to the store I told them that I would simply stop by in person and hopefully could get the issue resolved. 
When I showed up at the store, I met Nick and he was clearly annoyed at the fact that I was there. He told me that he was not going to pay for a full gallon of paint to resolve the warranty issue and that I had not properly registered my warranty by sending an email last year after his work was completed. It turns out that the email he was requesting just goes to him so I am not sure what the point of that is since I already have a contract that states a 3 year warranty on it. After discussing his response to my warranty concern for several minutes it was clear that he was NOT going to honor his warranty. Rather than argue the issue any further I told Nick how disappointed I was in his response, that I would not be providing him with any additional referrals, or positive references, and I left. If this is the way that he choses to deal with a MINOR warranty issue, I can't imagine how he would respond to something more significant.

BIG MISTAKE to use this company.  It was months of waiting and waiting and then having unskilled and disgruntled employees show up and do VERY SHODDY work.STAY far away from this company.  Antonio Lombardo talks a good line at the start but this is not a professionally run company with college students learning to be entrepreneurs. Definitely not. I would never recommend them to anyone.So many things went wrong but the worst was when one of the employees they sent told me not to talk to him because Irequested that the deck was to be power washed BEFORE he stained it.  There was some green mold on my deck and dirt and he was painting over it. He said he wasn't getting paid enough to do that. I had to ask him to leave since he was angry, rude and hostile and they sent out another crew who also told me that they were not getting paid enough for my job. (This should NOT have been my issue as I was willing to pay the full price of the contract that was present to me by Antonio Lombardo and I didn't not negotiate for a lower price. I accepted his price  and expected a good job that he would oversee....but he didn't. I was left to deal with his disgruntled employees on my own.)The new workers (not college kids doing their First Enterprise....don't let that part fool you) worked as fast as they could to get the job done.  I discovered after they left that there was parts left unpainted and over spray all over. By this time...4 months after I had given a deposit....I was done with this company. I'm finishing it myself.I hope I can spare someone else the pain of using this company.

Wood has been damaged due to power washing on garage doors, front entrance porch and house, areas have been painted that obviously were NOT putty/primed/scraped correctly. Paint is peeling already! Bricks have been painted/dripped with yellow and white paint. Front door has one coat of paint with with showing through. Paint overspray everywhere including my brand new glass front screen door. Every single plant has been painted/oversprayed even though I was promised they would be covered. A bush still has clear tape wrapped around it even though they missed painting behind it. Wood chips from power washing has been left on every surface and there is major wood damage everywhere. Over 400 bucks worth of plants died because workers took both my hoses without my permission/didnt return where they originated. They left them near my chained puppy and he ate both hoses. When I told the workmen they said they would replace. I didnt plant the flowers because I didnt want them to be painted like my other plants. It took two weeks to replace only one hose with a short, dirty old one. My plants died in the 2 week time. Big sheets of wood/siding was left on side of house and could have been used to fix rotten areas. Trim was patched badly or not replaced as promised. Most areas of house needs more coats of paint (can see through). Some areas of the house that should have been painted yellow was missed completely especially in corners and high areas of house. Men didnt clean up after themselves (pop containers, paint brushes, cigarett butts etc) and were left in yard. Most of house wasnt prepped/scraped properly and is now peeling in 2 months time. Bottom half of house foundation was painted but badly (still see original color on edges and corners), kitchen back porch area was only laf painted and black step railing wasnt painted. Two white benches were painted with same flat house paint (not plastic paint as agreed) and is now peeling. BBQ grills not painted as agreed either. Back screened in porch painted but missing areas. Ceiling fan was painted but a foot around ceiling wasnt painted and color is showing through on ceiling and whole area. It wasnt scraped and ceiling is peeling now also. Overspray on back yard items like chairs and tables. Sprayer/brushes were hosed down in yard and left white a4reas/strips of paint in grass. No clean up or care taken. Paint on air conditioner, electric meters, windows dryer hose vents, water nozzles, wood patio rail road ties etc. Paint should have been taped off, rolled and brushed places not oversprayed everywhere. There is white paint on roof also around dormers. I have neaver been so disappointed. I have virtually been abandoned by First Enterprise and Josh. I have many friends, family and other workers employed for other services who have commented on this shoddy work. I am a single Mom with two kids and I feel that I have been both victimized and taken advantage of.

Update 08/14/12: Horribly. See above.

This is the second building Josh and his crew painted for me this year. He did an excellent job on our house and now he's completed another excellent job, this time on my office building. This job was very different than the first one because the office building was built in 1890 versus a relatively new house. The exterior of the office building features, brick, wood siding, vinyl siding and metal soffits. Josh's painters matched the vinyl siding color perfectly and painted all of the other surfaces to match.
The quality of the work is top notch, largely due to the care that Josh puts into making sure that the client (me) is completely satisfied. That's pretty easy to do when the job is done right the first time. His painters were very careful to work around the unpredictable spring weather and they took great care to make sure the paint ended up on the building and not on the cars in the parking lot or the landscaping.
Josh is highly professional and detailed. He takes his time to explain what his quote includes and there weren't any surprises along the way. It's been a pleasure working with him on both projects.

I was very pleased with the results of this project. Josh was a pleasure to work with and his painter did an excellent job. We received a thorough walk-around for the quote and then again during and after the work to make sure everything looked good. Josh's quote was the lowest we received (not by a lot) but his attention to detail and obvious knowledge of what needed to be done far surpassed the other painters who submitted bids. (As an aside, we contacted two highly rated painters on Angie's List but experienced what I'll call the "Angie's List Effect." They were hard to get in touch with and seemed too busy to provide much time going over the details with us. One even seemed to intentionally price himself out of the job given how high his quote was. It seems like good AL reviews might lead to too much business for some small companies to handle.)

Overall, I would highly recommend Josh. In fact, he did such a good job on my house that I'm hiring him to repaint my office building.