SIGNATURE PAINTING

We had hired Signature Painting (Tony) to paint the entire interior of our home. We had spoke to him in detail about how we wanted the celings, doors, and trim painted white. We also explained that the one room we had painted ourselves took alot of paint, because the original new construction painters had not done a decent job. He agreed and said that was common for new construction. He said as long as you are doing those surfaces, it is less expensive to do the walls at the same time. He gave us an over the phone estimate, for just the ceilings, doors and trim, and a separate bid to include the walls. We said we would like to go ahead and have the walls painted at the same time. We told him that we would need a few days to pickout the colors for the walls. He said that was fine because he needed to complete another job. When he and his crew arrived the first day, they picked up the list of paint colors we chose and went to pick them up. Two of the colors were not correctly ordered. He picked up two gallons of paint for a small laundry room, and the paint for the fireplace was supposed to be a satin finish, not a semi gloss. No painting was done that day. The second day the painting began and he started saying that it was going to take more paint to cover the existing colors. We said, if he needed more paint that was fine. Then on the 5th day of painting, he says, he is going to have to charge an additional $5,000.00 to finish the job. He said that his original bid was for only one coat, and that he didn't realize we were going to paint different colors. He thought we were going to repaint the house in the same colors, just refresh the paint. We have no idea where he came up with that, and considering he is the one to pick up the paint, etc,. we don't know why he decided to wait until 5 days into the job to bring up the additional cost. He said he bids so many of these jobs, it just got past him. We told him to figure up what he owed him up to that point. It took him 30 minutes to figure out his own bidding system. He and his crew were dismissed at that point and we hired another set of painters to finish the job. The work that Signature Painting performed was good. Although they did not remove light fixtures, or switch plates. I did learn to NEVER hire anyone without a written contract. I would not hire them again.