Brian Mcmanus
About us
Painting
Business highlights
Services we offer
Painting
Amenities
Emergency Services
Yes
Free Estimates
Yes
Number of Stars | Image of Distribution | Number of Ratings |
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81% | ||
11% | ||
8% | ||
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I'm now renting my house out and I was nearing the end of the time prior to the renters taking up residence. I only had five days and had put off a couple of necessary items. I called Bryan last week and said "I'm so sorry for the late notice but is their any way you can help me out." He is really busy during the summer but they finished one of their jobs early and the whole crew was at my house and were able to wrap up what I needed done in half the time I thought it would take. Once again, their job was impeccable, and I was once again thoroughly impressed. In addition almost every member of his crew had been with him since painting my house four years ago. That speaks volumes about how tight knit the group is and that there is pride in workmanship and teamwork with the crew. This is very important when it comes to a painting crew, more so than most teams of contractors. If you are still questioning whether to give Brian a call let me add one last thing. I'm a physician and am extremely picky, to flirting with OCD like expectations. This crew has met and exceeded even my ridiculously high standards. Give him a call, you won't regret it.
He gets busy and so I sought him out last year and then made arrangements to paint the house. It was so worth the wait. I look forward to working with him again.
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He quoted me $250 for the whole job, including the paint. I agreed. There was no written contract.
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Then, when he showed up the first day to begin the work, he immediately said that it would be $50 more because there was some issue with the color of the paint.... that it would take more coats and require more of his time.....
I immediately said to him "Take the paint back." In my mind, I did not want to pay any more. I did not expect to pay any more. and I did not expect there to be an issue. His response was " I can't." I then said " You should have checked with me first if there was a problem with the paint color." His response was something like " You chose the color. So I didn't think I needed to contact you."
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Immediately I felt put off and upset. I also felt in a bind in that my house needed this work to be done in a timely manner in order to protect against the elements. So, although I was not happy with his attitude and the fact that he did not check with me first before unilaterally deciding on the paint and charging me more, I chose to allow him to do the job. I felt stuck. But that was my fault for waiting so long to tend to these projects.
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He did show up in a timely manner.
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When it came time for him to paint the door, I was shocked that he did not protect the brass hardware or the leaded glass window. Although his painting was fine, some paint did get onto the hardware and window. He made no attempt to clean it up. And, quite frankly, I never mentioned it because it felt awkward.
Another thing which greatly upset me was that when he went to sand the threshold, he did not warn me to seal the doorway and not stand there. The door did not close all the way because his cord prevented that and so when he sanded, I encountered a cloud of sanded dust all through the entranceway of my house. I would have prepared for that and used a different outlet location had I understood what was needed.
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He did a good job painting and caulking the door frame and painting the railings, reinforced by the painting of one of his assistants. However, he left a very visible messy mark on the siding near the railings. When I asked him about it, he said that he had tried to remove it but that's all he could do. That told me that that was as good as it was going to get. And that is another reason I chose not to mention the paint on the door hardware.
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After all of that, he left many very visible drops of white paint on my recently sealed driveway.
The men who worked on the garage were extremely meticulous for the type of painting and trimming they did.
Highly recommend their services!
Clean up was good and I get compliments from my neighbors about the look of my house. Very happy. I also like that I ran into Brian during one of my daily dog walks. Nice to do business with someone you see in your own neighborhood.
Would and will use him again.
The foundation plantings, shrubs, etc., were protected. They cleaned up during the project and afterwards left us with a beautifully painted exterior with no damage whatsoever to the surrounding areas.
Considering all the extra work that was done, we felt that the price was very reasonable. We highly recommend Brian and his team and would be glad to have him use our home as an example of his workmanship.
they kept their work going whenever the weather allowed, made sure paint was scraped as much as possible and did a good job getting the chipping paint off of our 100+ year old house.
End result was great -- vanity looks like new. I would highly recommend him and have done so. I am in process of having a partial bath remodel. My vanity top was replaced and the vanity base was in good shape other than a few worn spots. It now looks like new. I had a basic refinish done and am pleased with the results.
Their foreman James, was experienced and followed up conscientiously with the other crew members. The quality was excellent. The crew was very neat around my home and even worked around some sensitive landscaping. The crew were all very polite.
I would use them again for this job!
Brian showed up with his team at the time promised, and when asked to be careful of plantings around the garage, made sure that measures were taken to protect the plants from being walked on by the team members. Advised that some of the scraped paint was probably lead-based, the team took some care to minimize chips during the scraping process, but the measures were only partly successful. We don't have children, but the team could have been more careful with the chips. It was only a garage, but I wouldn't say that they used real lead-abatement procedures.
In general, the quality of the work was acceptable, though one plant hanger was clearly not protected from brush overflow, and the corner and door trim was painted in the trim color only on the outer surfaces...the edges of the trim pieces were painted the main color. This is probably our fault for not mentioning specifically how we wanted the trim to be painted, but we thought that in specifying the trim a certain color, it would have been obvious that the edges as well as the outer facing surfaces would be painted in that color.
One other, albeit minor, complaint from my partner was that she was somewhat put off by Brian's penchant for using "salty" language. It didn't bother me (I was in the military), and after the initial quote and job start, Brian was not present long enough or often enough for language to be an issue.
Despite the minor complaints, his crew was polite, they worked quickly and efficiently, showed up when expected, cleaned up after themselves, took pains to protect our garden from being trampled as they worked, and didn't get paint all over the foundation of the building.
I'd call him again, but I'd be more careful about specifying EXACTLY what I want painted and how I want it painted
I had contacted Brian early in the year as we were putting our house on the market as early as possible in the spring. Brian had me at the top of his list and started work as soon as weather permitted.
I had obtained quotes from three different contractors that were highly rated on Angie's list. Brian was considerably lower than the other two. The primary difference seemed to be that Brian proposed using only one coat of high quality stain vs. two coats with the other contractors. The final results looked excellent. My next door neighbor was very impressed and has hired Brian to do his house as well. This neighbor had similar experiences with other contractors - who quoted two coats.
Part of the reason that Brian's work looked so good is the extensive prep that his crew did. They aggressively scraped the siding (I had let it go a bit too long) and applied primer on the spots where the old solid stain came off. This assured a good foundation for the single coat of high quality (Benjamin Moore Woodscapes) solid stain. Brian also painted the white wood trim (also with Benjamin Moore paint).
I had also contracted with another firm (Penfair Painting) to refinish our deck. Brian's guys worked well with Penfair so that the deck refinishing went well.
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