James Dennis Painting & Carpentry

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Jim does excellent work for me, and his prices are fair. He worked in this job for me in spite of the fact that he had a number of outside painting work. He came out and inspected, told me I had 7 deck boards that were rotting in spots and needed replaced. He told me he would come out as time and weather allowed, but he would get the work done over about two weeks. He completed the work and added a top coat of matching PPG solid deck stain (he had two-coat stained this deck last year for me, so the top coat was necessary only to cover the new wood, touch up, and make the whole deck look consistent). The deck looks great.

Jim's not much to talk to on the telephone, but don't let that sway you. He does what he says, does quality work, and he charges a fair price. He also has a great hardworking and honest crew. Isn't that rare these days? It is for me among the people we hire to do work at our house. I recommend him and will continue to use him for our painting needs.

Jim Dennis is a small contractor who really cares about the quality of his work. I was introduced to him by a friend who used him to paint her new home. It is mainly Jim and his partner Tom. He will also bring in 1-2 other gentlemen to perform work if needed. I first had him perform some ceiling and painting repairs in my old home for about $200, and his finished product was excellent quality. He then turned his attention to painting pretty much every inside wall of our new home, which is large and with high vaulted ceilings (some as high as 20 feet), and which had wild vibrant colors he had to cover. This was a huge job in my opinion. Jim is light on any "shtick" as far as his initial presentation and sales job, and I must say I was initially concerned as to whether he could handle the large job he had in store. But in the end, I had my friend as a reference and went ahead with retaining him for the job. I gave him access to my empty house (we wanted this work done before we moved in) and he took nearly 10 days to complete the work. For the size of this project, trust me, that was reasonable. But you should see the end product! He went out of his way to repair imperfections in the wall that even I had not seen, and the lines are straight as an arrow and the finish very professional. It is the highest quality interior paint work I have ever paid for. Friends compliment us all the time on the quality of his painting work. He also touched up all of our white woodwork as a part of the job - something that I didn't even include in my contract!
I know nothing about the other reviewer's experience, but I can tell you the description of what happened is very out of character for Jim based on my experience with him.

After prep work was completed with a crew of 4 - 5 guys (taping, covering all floors, wall cleaning after removal of wallpaper), Mr. Dennis and his people walked off the job. We discovered this late one evening when we arrived at the house (we have not moved in yet, while renovation is taking place). We found a note in the kitchen scrawled on notebook paper saying that they had to leave the job because of a conflict with another job, and that Mr. Dennis could not afford to keep two crews working. He did not call us or communicate with us in any way before walking off the job. This is unacceptable, unprofessional and has forced us to scramble for new painters in a very tight timeframe. Based on the new quotes we have received, Mr. Dennis's quote was clearly too low to be realistic.
Several other painters have now told us that Mr. Dennis's prep work was subpar, and may have damaged our new wood floors.

The work was done while we were away. We crossed signals somehow, and they stuck the estimate in the door while were gone. Once we got the estimate we arranged for them to do the work while we were still away. I think they did a pretty good job.

James is awesome. His work is impeccable. He is trustworthy and dependable.

We thought that they did a very, very nice job. I did have three bids and they were in the middle. They were considerably lower than the highest bid. I have seen there work in the neighborhood. They did some additional work that was not included in the original bid, but they did paint the garage at not too much more cost. They also ended up painting the foundation of the house which also wasn't included in the original bid. I may use this company to paint the interior of the house, if they aren't too busy.

There is a large amount of wood on portions of the home, and the rot was pretty bad. Jim stuck to his estimate, and paid attention to the most minute detail in what amounted to a mild restoration. His pride in his work shown through, and even in the end he could not help but refinish our garage steps, which was not included in our original plan. In the end, I am sure the job cost more to do than he had planned, and he itemized that time, and split it with me. This guy is really a find. WE'll be having him do rooms inside this winter.

JIM WAS VERY DETAIL ORIENTED, WANTING TO GET EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT. REFERRED US TO A FREE DESIGN SERVICE TO HELP US PICK OUR COLORS. WORK WAS DONE WELL AND HE FOLLOWED UP WITH ITEMS WHICH WE FELT NEEDED SOME EXTRA ATTENTION. DID HAVE ONE INSTANCE WHEN HE DID NOT SHOW UP AS PROMISED. ALSO HAD A DISAGREEMENT OVER WHICH COLOR WE SELECTED, BUT HE APOLOGIZED LATER. JIM ALSO TOOK CARE OF SOME MINOR REPAIRS THAT WERE NOT PART OF THE QUOTE AT NO EXTRA CHARGE.