Surface Designs

n/a

Ed, the owner of Surface Designs Company was unprofessional. I told him upfront that I had $20,000 to fix the house and it was going to be split between different people for various projects. I had told Ed that I had a budget of $4000 for his part of the work. At first, he did a fantastic job. He used oil based paints and a mini roller and got it to look perfect. He charged me $495 for that work and I also paid $115 for the paint and tools separately. I was happy with that. Then I asked him to paint the fireplace and he did an excellent job at that. Then his wife asked me if they could take up the work of painting the entire interiors as they were in need of money. I told her that I will hire Ed to paint the rest of the two bed room condo but I could afford only $4000. I later found out that the number one painter in Medina would have only charged me $4500 for painting the two bedroom condo. This was the middle of September and I told Ed that I wanted to move in by the end of October because I worried about the snow coming in. However, Ed was only done with the top portion of the house by the end of October. Since I dealt with Ed?s wife on his schedule, I told her that I was willing to go along with them but I want it finished by beginning of December. My furniture also would start getting delivered by December. I checked a month later, they were not done, another month went by and they still were not done. Every other work that I had planned got postponed because of their delay. Everything was finally done but the front door. Ed told me that I will have to pay him car fare every time he comes to work, which is $20 a day. He said it will take him 3 hours to put on two coats of paint on the front door. So that would work out to be $60 to do the front door. I called his wife and asked him what Ed was doing after this work. She told me that he has got another job lined up. I told her that I didn?t expect them to any new work like painting the exterior of the garage door but I expected them to correct their mistakes (examples: they didn't pull the lights from the ceiling, they got wall paint onto the ceiling, the wrong paint was on the fireplace mantle, his straight lines were not straight, too much caulk was placed by the register, and he didn't caulk the windows). She refused and felt insulted. She told me that they are not willing to do any more work for me. I told her that I wanted to get an invoice on the work done till that date. I went to my bank to check on it to check on how much I paint them. They pulled out all the checks from last year and the checks from this year. They told me that I spend $7500 to Ed. Ed did not deposit the checks, he cashed them. I was shocked. I called up Ed and spoke to him about it. I asked him the receipts for all that he spent. He told me that he couldn?t give me the receipts because he bought the materials on a gift card. I tracked the gift cards with the help of a friend I knew at the store. I found out that he bought $200 worth of brand new paint brushes that he didn?t use. Then he told me that I had told him that anything he bought, he was allowed to keep. I did not tell him that. In fact I believed that any professional used their own things. They got the job in the first place because I felt sorry for them and they needed the money from this job. I had fixed the budget for the paint work prior to them even starting the work at $4000 but they had already charged my bank $7500. I would not consider using Surface Designs Company in the future.

In response to provider  Carl Edward Swartz and Chevelle Swartz, New Philadelphia  ohio comments  (12/16/11):

WOW!  All Ed had to say was that he and Chevelle have declared bankrupcy and had no money to pay anyone.  Instead he goes on and on in circles.  What does that say!  I have no more time I can spend on them since he could not even agree to help someone who was worse off than he was with their home without putting all kinds of conditions upon his help.   I am dropping this whole thing now because the Christian thing to do is to show mercy and forgiven for being taken advantage of.  Since in their filing, they claim to be so hard up, we sent them a food basket for a few months.  That is the kind of people I have around me. Their reasoning for their actions (see their bankrupcy filing) is that they needed cash badly due to credit card debt.  I did not know this at the time.

The bottom line problem is that they did not have the skill set they claim to for a proper job.  I did not fully realize this until other people pointed out their mistakes like not pulling the lights from the ceiling.    (I talked to the manager of the paint store, along with his boss and we all agreed, Jim never refused to take my calls asking for the paint chip color for the front door that Ed is referring to.)  Like with personal finances, (chapter 7, bankruptcy case 11-63034-rk) they overspent budget by roughly 40%    They refused to fix errors when asked  (I have numerous pictures of damages... caulking, poor painters lines, paint on the kitchen cabinets, etc)    They did not meet deadlines as stated on furniture invoices (fall 2010) when I was to move in.  Note Ed never addresses those furniture invoices... just makes up his own move in date for me.  I cannot say Ed thinks he is lying.  I truly believe he believes his own lies.   Non-professional conduct - called me a vandictive b**** who was mentally ill when Chevelle lost commission when I returned some of the furniture to pay for the damages they caused.    (This is why I won't have anything to do with Chevelle who also called me names... so much for her being a christian or Andreas.)  20% of claims are true in their rebuttals, 80% of their claims about the different situations where there was conflict are just a figment of Ed's imagination to justify his disfunctional behavior .  Invoice was for $495 and yes, I did ask Ed to raise it but only to account for supplies/paints he did not keep the receipts for.  Notice how he implies I was the dishonest one.  He states he made more than handyman.  Not true.  The handyman was offered Ed's rate. The handyman felt $25/hour was too high for what he was doing.   I could go on and on.  In answer to Ohio Attoney's General complaint 738599, Ed went on and on this time for 11 typed pages of which 20% was true and 80% of a figment of Ed's imagination.  Angies List's gave Ed my proposed to voluneer his time  to reach a settlement.  Note: I would gain nothing from this work.  Asked him to work 150 hours in Medina for Habitat for Humanity (a christian organization).  Agreed to let him work around his area instead of medina (Medina would be a distance), but he refused to work 150 hours.  Ask him via Angies List to work 4/6 hours/week for roughly 6 months (looking at his bankruptcy filing... is not doing anything job wise) on new house for a low income family.  Had some issues about working on Friday/Saturday.  He requested I (we were not speaking to each other and I was suppose to play his secretary)  find him a project (like installing toilets in one house? in his area).  I got feed up because I want nothing to do with this guy but to get some sense of fairness.   I called Habitat for Humanity and gave him an email to contact.  He did not do that.  He is the one who has to fill out the application form on the internet. I don't have the internet, he does.  (I don't think he is in to helping strangers yet he questions my christianity.  What is this "so help me God" business.  He is making a fool out of himself)  I just decided to let the whole thing go instead of trying to deal with someone who does not have his act together.