PAINTING PROFESSIONALS LLC

This is the worst painter and most unprofessional business owner I've ever encountered. I hired him on the recommendation of another painter who had done some work for a friend but had since moved out of the area. I saw pictures of painting Ralph claimed he'd done and they showed good, quality work. He missed the area of the ceiling around the attic access and only painted one side of the closet door. He tried to tell me the other side of the door didn't matter but who wants to open a door and see the other side unpainted?!? He ended up not charging me for the door but I still had to paint the other side myself. The biggest issue is that he TOTALLY screwed up my kitchen cabinets. They were varnished oak, built in 1985 and, as kitchen cabinets generally are, had a build up of dirt and grease from years of use. I had recently moved into the house and was trying to update it as it had not previously been well taken care of. Ralph took about a month to do this job but, despite this ridiculous amount of time, did not do it properly. He did not fill any holes or address any imperfections in the wood until, after the 2nd coat of primer, I called it to his attention. I used little pieces of sticky note to mark the worst of the areas and he actually painted over one piece of paper! He had finished the primer coats and completed a coat of finish paint and had not done anything at all to the cabinet over and next to the refrigerator. When I asked him about it, he advised that he does not pull out appliances due to risk of breaking something. However, despite being that far along in the job, he had never asked me to move the fridge so I can only assume he had no intention of painting that area had I not brought it to his attention. Throughout the month he was working on the cabinets, I would pay him for the materials he bought and some toward he quoted price. The cabinet doors were taken to Ralph's shop and I had ordered new hardware that was due to arrive within a couple of days when he called to ask me for the remaining money for the job. He had not advised me of a completion date, still had the doors at his shop and still need to do another coat of paint. Of course I refused to make a final payment on an uncompleted job and, when I told him this he became extremely irate, saying that he needed the money to put into his next job! We had a bit of an argument but I stood firm, letting him know that he would be advised when the hardware arrived, which it did the next day and he came the following day to install the doors. When the painting was completed, it was such a huge difference from the previous look that I did not notice many problems until later. As most of his work was done at his shop or while I was at work, I did not realized that he did no sanding and, despite his claims otherwise, did not properly prep before painting The cabinets began peeling within two weeks after he finished! Upon closer inspection, several cosmetic problems were found. When I called him to let him know there was a problem, I got his voice mail and left a message, very nicely asking him to call me to resolve the issue. That, plus two other calls over the next two days went unanswered until I threatened to have my attorney make the next call if he did not respond by 5:00pm (it was mid-morning when the message was left). That call was returned within 10 minutes...imagine that! He agreed to come over and see what would be needed to "touch up" the peeling areas. I advised there were other problems as well and that a touch up would not suffice. I was concerned about what would happen in six weeks or six months given the peeling already happening in such a short time frame. I advised that I expected the job to be redone completely to ensure long-term durability of the paint. At that point, Ralph began cursing at me, stating that he had "5,000 happy customers", I was the only one that ever complained, my house was filthy and all I was to him at that point was "a pain in [his] f***ing a**". At this, I let him know that I would post negative reviews on every site there was and do what I could to make sure his lack of professionalism and poor work quality was known throughout the Tri-county. His response was that, if I got three quotes to refinish the cabinets, he would pay for it. I proceeded to get the quotes over the following months (I was dealing with serious family health issues at the same time so this part was somewhat delayed) and all quotes were at least twice what I'd initially paid Ralph since the cabinets would need to be completely stripped to start over. All the other painters stated it was obvious to them that the prep was not done properly and there was no way to do a "touch up" that would look good. When I called Ralph to give him the quotes, he denied ever making the statement about paying. I ended up filing a small court claim in effort to get the money from him. I had statements from the company that made the primer there was no problem with the batch, statements from the paint company that the paint Ralph used was not ideal for kitchen cabinets and a statement from one of the other painters that the improper prep caused the peeling. From his statements, the judge agreed that I had a case, however, none of the written statements or emails I had were admissible in court. In order to win the case, I would have had to subpoena one of the other painters to testify in court, costing them a day of work. I was not, in good conscience, able to do that! It would have been totally unfair to ask a person to lose income just because they responded to a request for a job quote! I lost the case but I did cost Ralph a full day of work so that is my redemption. Do yourself a favor and do not even think about hiring this guy!