JOE MCILWAIN PAINTING

First guy bid $4200.00. Second guy bid $3500.00 (included trellis) but couldn't get to it until late summer. This bid came in at $1980.00. Bingo! Even if I had to add trellis, still a good bid. I didn't hear from him for a while but his wife was hospitalized. After I called him to confirm he received my acceptance of his proposal, he turned up shortly thereafter. I had just started a new job so I wasn't home to supervise. My 26 yr. old son was in & out, served as liaison. They stripped old paint with power washer, trimmed the shrubbery around the house themselves (one guy told me I'd have to do that). Left the excess on the lawn for us to pick up. Front of the house looks great, except for the steel front door. He told my son it looked perfect even though it had dog scratches all over it (he didn't want to paint it). I wanted it painted but it was never sanded or whatever, already (2 wks.) the paint is chipping & it was humid so didn't dry properly, so it sticks now & where it sticks, the paint's come off. I expect I'll have to repaint it myself. The back was a little different. Not as much preparation was made before painting on window frames, etc. The trellis was an afterthought. Bid an extra $385 - no problem, but there was moss growing on the top & it was just painted over, not scraped off. They did nail down a few loose boards. The steel basement doors & casement he painted bright red instead of "cinnabar". Granted the doors were bright red, but the casement had been the darker red. He also scraped & painted my cement front porch a nice gray. The only color choice we made was the cinnabar, not the white or the red basement doors. I expect he was using paint he had instead of buying more paint in my chosen color. I guess you get what you pay for. At least I know what paint it was so I can duplicate & repaint doors, etc., if I have to. Overall, a good price, so I can't really complain. If I had been here to supervise, perhaps things would have gone differently. Perhaps they would have cost more, too.