Perfection Painting

Don Salomon, formerly Perfection Painting, now goes by ?Contracting Team, Inc.? He is a great salesman, filling you with confidence that everything will be done in the most excellent manner. He actually knew what excellent would look like in my room, because he told me how the job would look and it sounded great. However, he didn?t deliver on the excellence part. This is sad because he seems like a nice guy and because his work could be excellent if he would slow down and care about doing things right instead of fast. The good things about the job are: effective patching, smoothing, and painting of most areas; good stripes on one wall; good price. The things that fall short are: ruined doorway to an adjoining room; paint on 2 leather chairs; paint used to touch up baseboards is a different white than existing paint and is blotchy. Beyond the final visual result, one issue for me was that Salomon and his men didn?t make an effort to protect my things. Altho the contract specified "cover all surfaces completely" and Don said they would take care of everything and I didn?t need to move any furniture or do anything about the carpet, they began painting without covering the furniture or floors. They rollered the ceiling with no drop cloths over anything. Later, each painter had one small drop cloth which he only sometimes placed under his work. Sometimes they placed the same drop cloth from the floor directly on my upholstered furniture, paying no attention to which side was up. (Imagine client horror.) So if you use them, protect everything yourself before they start. Another careless practice was they sometimes applied paint after sanding without cleaning off the dust. A further unfortunate issue is that when painting the stairwell wall, Don stood on our railings to reach high when he should have used a ladder. which has reduced the stability of the railing. Before Don made a return visit to do the finishing touches, I was trying not to be judgmental, thinking maybe you have to expect carelessness and just take it. But when Don made his return visit he abolished my sympathy. Don is in a rush with everything. Here is what happened: Along the side and top of a doorway, his guy had left a messy paint edge feathered into the adjoining room (a room that he did not paint). Don "fixed" the situation as follows: he asked for the paint that was used in the adjoining room. He took that old can that hadn?t been opened in 3 years, rustled it slightly from side to side, and placed it squarely on my granite counter next to food. He put no newspaper or drop cloth or paper towel, nothing to protect in case paint escaped the can or the can might be offensive on the kitchen counter instead of the floor. He then struggled to pry open the lid and I was afraid the paint might slosh onto my new granite. After I found a newspaper and placed the can on the floor, he was able to partially pry off the top and slip in his brush. Then he brush-flicked paint around the doorway to cover the little sloppy edge his guys made. I then noticed that the old paint he was dipping into wasn?t mixed at all. He could see that, too, but I thought he, the painting pro, knew something I didn?t and it would be okay.... NOT. That un-stirred paint dried to a very different shade. I now have a whole doorway that I?m ashamed of, and he should be, too. Something that could have looked good was lost. You?re not supposed to make emotional judgments in these reports, but I feel sad because I think Don knows how good work can and should be done, but doesn?t slow down enough to do it. In my opinion his business is ruined by the insanity of him and his people rushing instead of planning enough time and doing it right. I believe he would return as many times as I want and continue fixing things until I?m satisfied because he isn?t fundamentally dishonest. But after his reckless haste and wasted time to ?fix? things the last time, I don?t consider it worth my time. He requires too much adult supervision and he?s so careless that it would take more than one more try to get it right.

After the painting was done, my inspection showed many areas where brush marks and roller marks were present due to the painter not being careful to feather the edges of each area. Some areas were not covered properly, with the old color showing through. The gloss paint showed every tiny (but normal) imperfections in the plaster wall surface and looked really bad. I told Don that it was unacceptable and I wanted all rooms except the kitchen and bathrooms to be re-painted in flat and to do a better job. We negotiated a new price for switching to flat since the problem was both poor painting and the use of the gloss which I had originally agreed to against my better judgement. Upon inspecting the completed paint job with flat paint, the imperfections in the walls were no longer noticeable, but there were still many areas with brush and roller marks and poor coverage. Some areas had the gloss showing, meaning they had not been re-painted. As if that were not enough, I then learned that all interior doors had been removed for painting without my approval. This was simply not necessary at all. Upon asking Don why they weren't back in place, he told me that he could not tell which door came from which room because the painters had labeled them in pencil and painted over the notations. Several of the doors he had reattached would not close properly and he couldn't get the others to go back on at all. I told him that I had paid a handyman to do several things to get the house ready for sale just the previous month and one of those things was to make sure all doors (interior and exterior) were closing and locking properly. Don had now messed that up big time. He kept offering to come back (which he did several times) to get the job up to an acceptable quality but as the days went by and I kept finding problems, it was obvious to me that he could not finish this job with acceptable results. He gave up on the door situation, saying he just couldn't get them back on. Needing to get this finished and solve the horrible door problem, I brought in my handyman to finish the areas with coverage or roller mark problems and also fix the doors. I ended up having to pay the handyman $500 just to get all the doors right because of the time it took trying to figure out which door fit which room and having to re-do some of "fitting" work Don did. I had to literally order Don not to return to the jobsite because I had to have the house ready to show and he continued to fail to produce a decent finished job. During my life I have painted inside quite a few times and it is not that hard. I would conclude by saying that he really needs to change his company name if what I experienced is typical of his work.

Don has a good sales pitch and makes lots of promises but doesn't deliver. He promised he would hire a cleaning lady to clean up the dust from the popcorn ceiling removal PRIOR to painting our cupboards, but instead he finished all the painting without removing the dust. He promised he would sand cupboards that had rough finishes, nicks, and dings but he didn't, he painted right over it. He promised he would paint all the hinges even though we didn't think they needed it, but he didn't do that anyway. He talked us into replacing one of our light fixtures because he said he had to remove the light fixtures anyway. He didn't bother to ask us to flip the breaker off, but instead proceeded to remove the light without shutting off the electricity! He popped the circuit in the process. Luckily, it wasn t on the circuit for our work computers. When he installed the light, he hung it by the electrical wire instead of the chain links, so it was crooked. We had to re-hang it ourselves which wasn t easy because they lost the manual and cut the wiring too short. When they started cleaning up, they bunched up all the paper on the floors and started to stuff our trash can completely until we stopped them. He originally quoted the job would take about 3-4 days, but he finished in 2 days (he seemed to be in a rush). Don assured us that it was not a problem for him to come back, if we found he missed something. He said it was common. However, with today s gas prices you d think he d rather get the job done right the first time and not have to return. Before paying, we noticed a few things that he missed and pointed it out. The funny thing is that his cleaning lady chimed in to tell us not to "pick on" Don because he does really good work. The next day we noticed that he missed a place on the ceiling, missed entire baseboards around our island, and did a bad job around the top of the light fixture over the island, as well as an area on the cupboards where it meets the counter top. He came back after a week and two of the areas are now WORSE than before he came. (see the pictures attached) The area around the light fixture above the island looks like he sanded it with very gritty sandpaper and spackled it poorly. The cupboard looks like he used paint that was drying out because it's all clumpy and brush-marked on surrounding areas that weren t even a problem! He actually made it worse!

He does a great job, with great detail. He is also very careful not to get paint in places not intended. He also guarantees his work. He offered to come back and redo anything he might have missed (which he did not), but just the fact that he offered. As a Realtor, I have and will continue to recommend him to family, friends, AND clients. I had two other quotes that were close to double the price Don quoted me. They may have had a entire crew and done the job in a day, which is what I would have been paying for with another contractor. I was more than pleased with Don's service, quality, and the time he spent on the job. I didn't feel that he was just trying to hurry through, but really make sure he did it right and that I was pleased.