Kapski Painting Inc

Steve Kapski came out and gave me a quote for the work I requested. He emailed a written quote within a couple days and was responsive to questions and communicative throughout the project. One of the reasons I hired Kapski Painting was because he has a carpenter on staff that can do just about any house repair. I did not have to hire another person to replace a couple windows and repair door trim, etc. They are experienced with old houses, too. All of the work was done well and on time. The exterior required substantial prep work, and all of that was done thoroughly. I am happy with the work and would hire them again.

Went well!

Run as fast as you can from this smooth talker. He didn't prep or prime my house right so all paint started peeling within a few months. The original estimate went up very quickly with sneaky add ons and incessant nickel and diming me throughout the whole job. Paint is streaked all over and is peeling off of the house - completely failing everywhere.
I won my case in Small Claims Court. He appealed. I won a full refund based on unbelievable photos in District Court. Steve's not an honest man - he won't be paying without sheriff chasing him now. Photos are mind-boggling, wasn't hard to win.
He offered to spot paint but I couldn't move the camera more than 6 inches to take another shot of failing paint. We haggled over every spot until I realized that it didn't matter how many times he painted over them, the prepping and priming was so bad that no paint will ever stick. He never admitted the problem - even in the face of judge and law panel and photos of total paint failure and sloppiness. No backbone whatsoever in Court - seemed really pathetic, but a smart rat who knows how to game the system to get away with horrible workmanship.
I have a much worse problem than I had before he came because now I have layers of chipping, cracking, peeling paint all over a very large house. A total nighmare to deal with him, crew required constant attention and left a horrible, dangerous mess all over my yard.
Reviews here are not consistent with conversations I've had with others who used him .Read Yellow pages reviews - no surprise his local nickname is and quot;Krapskiand quot; -
http://www.yellowpages.com/gradyville-pa/mip/kapski-painting-inc-457999761

We are very Happy! His crew was very nice and Professional. Trustworthy ,and Reliable. We needed a touch-up and they immediately returned and addressed the issue!

Steve and his crew are excellent. I would say that his prices are never the least expensive estimate but it is worth paying a little extra money for the quality of their work, the punctuality and professionalism of their team. I will always use Kapski painting!

Work was done well. Demo of the old ceiling was done without any unnecessary damage and was cleaned up entirely. The new drywall and insulation were installed professionally and the end result looks great. They were flexible and creative in coming up with the right trim / finishes.
I will use them again.

The process started off in a very positive way. Steve came out, and did a walkthrough of our home. My wife showed him the rooms we wanted painted, they discussed colors, and he was willing to accommodate our request to use Mythic brand no VOC paint in two of the bedrooms. We originally discussed completely stripping our fireplace mantel and staining it, but we opted to paint it to match the color we picked for the rest of the woodwork because we were not sure of the quality of wood that the mantel was made of. We came up with a plan to have the upstairs painted first, and then the downstairs and exterior in order to minimize the disruption to our lives. The project was to take 8 days.

The first day everything went according to plan. The second day, the problems started. The painters on the second day started moving throughout the house. The only room that was left in tact was our master bedroom at our insistence. Keep in mind that the upstairs was not even close to being finished. In fact, no one room (or area such as a hallway) was complete until 6 days in to what turned out to be a 9 day project (and even then, it was not completely finished). Also on the second day, Kapski tried to get us agree to pay an additional $800 to sand and strip the fireplace mantel that we had very specifically discussed, as well as the spindles of our railing leading upstairs. He apparently didn't realize during his inspection that it suffered the same failing paint issue as much of the other woodwork. It was supposedly going to take one of his workers two entire days to sand and strip the mantel and spindles. After much back and forth, I offered to pay $300 for the and quot;additionaland quot; work, which Kapski accepted. I truly believed at this point that he had made an honest mistake, and was trying to do the right thing. It was not until the end of the project that I realized that at best Kapski is a poor estimator, and at worst, a fraud.

By the end of the first week we were pretty unhappy. Absolutely nothing had been completed, and our lives were in complete disarray. Our child's room was close to complete, but we could not get it completely set back up because workers were still in and out doing woodwork and things. We were also starting to notice sloppiness in the quality of the work, such as paint drips and splatters on our brand new doorknobs. They clearly didn't take the time to tape them off before painting the doors.

The second week, things got worse. The painters started on the exterior surfaces before anything inside was finished. I had to plead with the foreman at that point because he wanted to start work in the master bedroom, as if he didn't have anything else to do. One evening I came home to find a razor blade laying on my living room floor. Luckily I found it before my toddler did. Another evening, to my surprise, I found they had used my child's room to store furniture from another room. I had to remove it all in a hurry so I could put the child to bed. When I finally did let them start on the master bedroom they damaged the screen in one of my windows because they removed it to throw the chair rail they were removing out the window. Kapski is paying to have the screen repaired, but I am going to be without it for a week in the meantime.

The job ended up taking a full day longer than they had estimated, and even then it wasn't what I'd call complete at all. The last 2 days they sent a different foreman out. There was clearly no communication between the two. The first had removed a chandelier in the dining room that wasn't put back up because the 2nd foreman didn't know about it. The first foreman also lost several switchplates and outlet covers. Kapski did offer to send someone out to take care of these issues, but I declined because after the fiasco I'm about to describe, I just wanted them out of my home.

When it came time to settle the bill, Kapski had added an additional $160 for the chair rail removal. This was part of the original scope of work. Nobody had mentioned anything about extra charges until this point. Kapski told me that his foreman knew about the extra charge but and quot;forgotand quot; to tell me. I informed him that I would not have authorized the work if I had known it was going to cost extra, but he did not make any offer to remove the charge. In the end I had to simply refuse to pay it. In a later invoice, Kapski upped this amount to $260 to make up for an error in the deposit amount (he had it as $100 over the real deposit). This is beyond bad accounting - this is fraud.

All told, Kapski tried to bill me almost $1000 over the original $6000 estimate. My dining room chandelier isn't hung, the ceiling wasn't even patched, and I have several missing switchplates and outlet covers. The original paint color is showing through in several places, and they painted right over the spindles without sanding them first, so the paint there is already starting to peel. In addition to these defects, almost our entire home was unusable during this process. They totally ignored the plan of doing small parts of the home at a time that we discussed.

Regarding Kapski's response:
His recollection of the details is not correct. I have email records detailing everything and supporting my version of the events.

It is true that they finally came back and did the touchups... after I filed a lawsuit. Before that, Kapski refused to come back out to evaluate the defects in their work. After the conditions of the original scope of work were met, I did sign a document stating that everything was complete to my satisfaction.

unknown

Kapski did an EXCELLENT job. The guys were professional, courteous, and friendly. The quality of their work was excellent. This is the fourth time I have used this company and I am continually impressed by them. It may sound stupid but I am especially impressed by the courtesy of the crews. They never curse or play music and they treat you and your home w/ the utmost respect.

Steve runs a great business. He guarantees customer satisfaction. I highly recommend them to anyone!

After talking to Steve on the phone as to how the work was performed, he came out to the job to look at it himself. He seemed adamant that the work was done correctly and that "his guys did a good job." Some of Steve's employees did a good job, but one in particular, did not. After taking over 100 pictures of individual areas that were completely missed, or not second coated and emailing some of them to Steve, he did send back a CREW of 3-4 guys to apply a true second coat and they were there for most of the day applying a second coat. This being said, we are unsure how one guy was able to have done an entire second coat himself. In the end, the overall job was fair. Aside from money, the entire experience was more stressful and time-consuming than an experience with a painting contractor should be. Had a level of professionalism been used from the onset, our experience would have been entirely different.

Their website is actually very nice. It is www.kapskipainting.com. The estimate that I received was the best one. The people always showed up on time and finished the work in a timely manner.

Kapski took the measurements and gave us the estimate, but he left all the work to his employees, and we never saw him again. It was very obvious they only used one coat of paint because you could see the old color underneath in some areas. They were sloppy, hurried through the job, missing spots, splattering paint on our newly finished floors. We had to ask them to come back out twice to "touch up" a lot of what they missed. One guy came out and it took him nearly all day to finish the unfinished work. I would never hire this company again.

It was the worse experience we ever had with a painter. Kapski is a crook.

I DID NOT HAVE A GOOD EXPERIENCE WITH THIS PAINTING COMPANY. THE WORKMEN WERE GIVEN SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS WHICH THEY DID NOT HEED (SUCH AS BRUSHING, NOT ROLLING THE WOODWORK). THEY DID A POOR JOB DRYWALLING. CUT TOO WIDELY AROUND THE HOLES FOR LIGHTING FIXTURES. AND LEFT UNEVENNESS IN ONE OF THE JOINTS. THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY WAS VERY RESPONSIVE TO MY REQUESTS TO HAVE THE WORKMEN CORRECT THEIR MISTAKES. EVENTUALLY, SOME CORRECTIONS WERE MADE, THOUGH THE WORK WAS STILL NOT THAT GREAT.