PAINTING SOLUTIONS

Bruce Tuttle and the Painting Solutions crew have done work for us over the last 20 years in both our Bergen county home and our Monmouth county cottage. Bruce is meticulous in his contracts and fair in his pricing. He covers all the bases with us ahead of starting to work so that we always knew what to expect. The work was beautifully done. He always alerted us to any additional problems he discovered and asked us if we wanted him to include that extra repair in our contract. He is pleasant to work with and has always demonstrated a high degree of integrity. We recommend him and his company highly.

Bruce was very professional and explained all of the options regarding the project carefully before a decision was made. He presented white papers explaining different levels of service and expected results that really helped in decision making. The job was completed on-time and looks great!

Excellent work Punctual professional near contractor Fair price Highly rec.

Bruce did a great job for a good price, and I was under time pressure to get my place for renters and he made it happen on time.

Very Well. I am happy that Bruce and crew have helped me, a single older woman, with most of my handyman tasks for close to a decade now. I know he is busy, so under time constraints, but engaged when he is doing my work. The guys a nice, courteous and friendly; maintaining professionalism all along. My friends turned me on to Painting Solutions, and I am glad they did...I will not hesitate to call Bruce again. I probably have spent over $8000 in the past 10 years for Painting Solutions to maintain my house in fine shape.

Overall, I am not satisfied with their service. I had a bad experience with them. I would never go back to them.

I was initially happy with the estimate and the fact that they would also take care of the moldings and doors. I arranged my schedule so that I could work the weekends and be off Monday thru Friday on 2 consecutive weeks in order to be home during the work. When asked, I initially said that they could place the old paneling at the curb if it was cut up in 4 ft sections. However, I later found out from a neighbor that Cherry Hill requires contractors to remove their own waste. When I told Bruce this and that this same neighbor had mentioned that he had reported 3 other people, he blew me off and said the township would contact me, not him! They continued to put their waste at the curb. He and his crew spent the first week rinsing their brushes and tools in my kitchen sink. Over the weekend, a friend and I spent 30 minutes hand cranking and flushing out my 6 month old garbage disposal to get it working. When I mentioned this on Monday to his assistants, they apologized but when I told Bruce, he lied to my face and said they had never rinsed any paint brushes in the sink!! 20 minutes later I heard water running in the kitchen sink!! The first day they put down tarps and moved furniture to the middle of rooms and covered it. By day 2 their was no tarp covering the hallway carpet, it was never covered again and the furniture was sloppily protected. On Friday afternoon, before leaving for the weekend, Bruce asked me what clean-up I wanted. I asked if they would roll the tarps toward the center of LR and DR and use the Shop Vac to clean up the wood splinters and nails so that my 2 cats and 1 dog would be safe over the weekend while I was at work. Bruce's answer...."can't you just lock them in the bathroom/". IT'S THEIR HOUSE!!!!! Why should my pets suffer because a contractor is lazy? He also told his assistant to put the ShopVac in the truck....it was never used for any clean up in my house and never returned. I spent every evening after they left cleaning up wood splinters and nails with a broom and dustpan so my pets and I would not step on them. When Bruce's crew finished on the 2nd Tuesday, they used MY Hoover upright vacuum to clean up. Most of the doors that he installed do not close properly. When I mentioned this afterward, Bruce told me "Oh, you just need to tighten the screws." I would also have to agree with the gentleman who gave an F rating that they did a sloppy job of cutting in around some of the trim. I am something of a perfectionist and it bugs me. Now, 5 years later, I can tell you that the paint looked pretty good for a short time but then it began to crack and chip off. I had wanted them to use Valspar American Traditions paint as that is what I had used in 2 other rooms and I liked the quality. Bruce refused and insisted that MAB paint was better. Trust me, it is not. It is very poor quality paint! I also wanted the dining room painted antique white to match the kitchen since they are really one room. I obtained a paint chip of the Valspar color so that it could be color matched to MAB paint. Bruce told me he had already purchased the paint. When they started to paint the dining room it was several shades darker than the Valspar antique white. I insisted that they stop and get the correct color, which they did, but I am sure I probably ended up being charged for both. If you want a contractor who is passive aggressive, blows off most of your requests, does a very poor job of protecting your home and uses poor quality materials, this is the company for you. Otherwise, I would definitly find someone else. I'm sure Mr. Tuttle will tell you that I never contacted him after the job was done and that is true. What would have been the point? As you can see from the above, every request/complaint that I made was blown off, ignored and or lied about.

We had already had 3 other estimates when Bruce came. Bruce offered to do more than just paint including installing baseboards and removing carpeting from stairs and painting them. When we got the estimate back, Bruce's estimate (around $1,400) was over $800 more than other painters. We opted for him since he would install the baseboards, do the stairs and paint the room.. We had estimates for the trim installation from carpenters off of Angies list which came in around $500 and included installing the staircase baluster. Bruce's estimate was just for the baseboards, no baluster, but given that we believed the stairs were also being done, we felt it was fair. After sending Bruce a deposit and signing the contract, Bruce said the stairs were not part of the contract. Bruce told us the stairs were not stapled (which would have been as simple as pulling up the carpet and filling in staple holes before painting) and instead they were glued down which would be much more difficult. Bruce disagrees with us and claims to not even remember discussing the stairs. The contract is vaguely worded, so he claims it was not included. But I disagree. We purchased pine baseboards and Bruce then complained that he normally uses pre-primed baseboards. He then claimed that this was not part of the contract so he was going to charge us more. However, Bruce never mentioned what kind of trim to buy and we agreed that ALL surfaces to be painted would be primed and then have 2 coats applied. Bruce decided to add nearly a 10% upcharge to the labor costs just for one "additional" coat of paint on the baseboards. We felt trapped at that point. As far as the paint job goes, the trim was not taped nor was good job done cutting in, so we don't have a sharp break between the trim and the wall. The lines are uneven and the wall has trim paint on it. Other than the trim detail (which is the main reason we hired a painter rather than do it ourselves), the walls were fine. Clean up was poor. Paint chips & dust are all over our floor. There is paint on the floor which we were told would not happen. They also left a long piece of baseboard on the 3rd floor. It took two men to get it up on the 3rd floor climbing on the roof and it was left it for my wife and I to remove. They finished less than 12 hours ago and scuffed a wall on their way out, so we now have a scuff on our new paint job.

I first hired them in 2008, and have had them back for both interior and exterior painting and general handyman work--results of which have all been great. Workers arrived on time and were task efficient. I found them to be very trustworthy, honest and fair: there have been some unexpected curve balls thrown into projects, but Bruce was very communicative in explaining the whys and wherefores as he was on site every day.

I have recommended them to many friends, and again, have heard nothing but good things about the results.

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I liked that they gave me ideas and showed me color combinations that would work for the interior of my house. They did the work neatly and did not leave a mess when they were done. I was happy.

I HAVE USED THE COMPANY BEFORE. HE DOES THE BEST PAINT JOB I HAVE EVER HAD DONE IN MY HOME. HE DID THE SMALL DETAIL WORK THAT OTHERS WOULD NOT THINK TO DO.