JV Painting & Construction Home Maintenance

He does the job right and took the time to teach me how he does it. All the tricks & tools of the trade as well as the specific products (bleach/pressure wash solution, sand, caulk, primer, paint and paper tape tool. I recommend Jerry to anyone for interior or exterior painting needs.

I had purchased an Angie's List deal for a "painter for a day". I waited a couple of weeks to schedule since I figured they would be very busy after the deal closed. We arranged a time to meet at our condo on a day that he was going to be on the north side of Austin. After waiting 30 minutes after our scheduled time, I called and he said he was doing another estimate and would be there "soon". I told him that I could wait another 20 minutes before having to leave to go back to work. I waited 25 minutes (a total of almost an hour). When I returned later that day, he had left his card at the door and left me a message. I opted to refund the deal rather than risk losing more time waiting for him. I wish I could comment on his services and I do appreciate that he tried to work with me.

s.

Good.

First of all, it took 7 months to schedule an appointment. We have used him before and he does great work, but is rather disorganized. He did not show up for the first appointment, so we rescheduled for another day. The Deal included 24 hours of labor, between three people. Jerry, the owner, came out and worked for six hours and painted a few walls of my house and told us that he was done - that the six hours of work he did was equivalent to 24 hours by his crew because they "milk the job".

In closing, when I explained to Jerry that I expected more than six hours of time for the $649 I paid, he threw up his arms and stormed off. He did say he was starting to get sick again, which is why he missed one of the previous appointments, but instead of agreeing to reschedule he stated that he fulfilled his obligations and roared away in his truck.

I thought the "big deal" would get me at least one room painted.  No way.  I will say that I have never hired an interior painter, but was shocked by the cost.  First, I bought a deal that I believe was supposed to be $499 worth of painting for $250.  The owner did his estimate and then tried to tell me he would deduct $250 from the estimate for the "big deal."  This took a bit of discussion to resolve.  I ended up getting one room painted (with some drywall seam repair) and a stairwell (walls and ceiling only; I did the trim myself) and paid $800 above the "big deal" price for this.  I wasn't at home when the painting took place, but don't think the owner did the work.  It took two more return trips before the work was completed to my satisfaction, one where he said on a Friday that he'd come the following Monday, but didn't return for 10 days.
The finally completed project looks great, but I can't say I would do this again.  My bedroom needs painting and also has a high ceiling, but I think I will get estimates rather than jump at what looks like a bargain but really isn't.

Jerry was professional, skilled, on time, polite, and personable.  He
has many years of experience as a painter. The painting special did not
include trim work, but Jerry very kindly explained shared his expertise,
explaining what I needed to do to do the trim work on my own.

Jerry at JV Painting is the most amazing painter I have ever worked with. He cares very much about the job he does. He is extremely professional, detail oriented, personable, and stays by his work 100%. He goes way above and beyond to make sure everything looks perfect and brand new. I started off with an exterior paint job that was very reasonably priced and I was so impressed with his work ethic, his management skills, his timliness, his perfectionism, that I asked him to submit a bid for the ENTIRE interior of my 4400 square foot house, including cabinets, baseboards, repairs of work that needed to be done prior to painting, garage and workroom spray, cement foundation spray, shutters---you name it. The house looks brand new and perfect. You couldn't ask for a better person to work with. He saved my sanity and helped me save costs without compromising quality.

unknown

I scheduled three times for him to come do an estimate but he never showed up and never called. I haven’t heard from him for a week and a half even though I have left messages. He did asked me if I wanted additional work done outside of the 8 hours and I was honest and said no it smaller job and I feel like this may have to do with the way he is treating me.

unknown

Jerry sent me (two days before he arrived) to get paint from dealer and they gave me the wrong kind. Jerry took my paint back to the dealer to make the exchange and retrieve the right product/kind for no add'l charge. Therefore, he got a late start in painting but didn't charge for extra time spent at my house/on the project.

They were good and acceptable in every way.

Project went very well. Work was done on time and if there were any small touch up items, these were promptly attended to.

He called me shortly after viewing my rental property. Said that there was a lot of additional work that needed to be done before he could paint the property. He said that he had to power wash the whole building, fix a fence, a paint a garage door that had been recently painted last yr. I have never had to pay more than $200 for this service and feel he was just looking for things to do to bring up the cost. He is not out to please the customer, he is out to please his pocket book.

:Jerry and crew painted the interior of our house and also did some drywall repair.They started the project on Aug. 21 and finished 0n Aug. 28, taking the weekend off. They arrived everymorning at 7:30 and worked until 5:30. The job was done great with as little disruption to our daily livesas possible. This was the 2nd time we have hired JV Painting as they painted the exterior of the housea year and a half ago. I would recommend them to anyone who wants a professional job at a fair price.

JV explained the work to be done clearly.  He was accurate with his estimate.  He was very good about working with us to get the work that we really wanted done, not just what we told him to do.  If he had not asked questions and provided excellent suggestions, we would have gotten exactly what we told him to do but been disappointed.  He suggested ways to fix problems originating from the original construction work.Not only did he explain what he was doing, but provided suggestions on how to avoid problems in the future.
Never negative nor bad mouthing competition or previous workmanship, he provided a positive approach to fixing sheet rock issues and how to paint them it to hide the flaws.

Received my refund but it was a disappointing experience.  I have purchased other big deals and this is the only one that was a total failure in the description of the services versus what the painter was willing to do for the cost of the 'deal'.

I really was happy with JV painting. I tried emailing them at first but received no answer. However, they were very prompt on the phone so if you need to get a hold of them, use the phone. We had setup a time and he called to say he was running late and we rescheduled. He came on time with a crew of two other people. He let them start prep work and came back and helped to paint. They got both the kitchen and bathroom done in about 8 hours. They would not leave until I was 100% satisfied. They did an excellent job prepping for painting so there were clean lines with base boards and corners. The lines were very clean where it met edges and other paint colors. They were very courteous while they were in my home. They also cleaned up thoroughly when they left.
I was impressed enough to get a quote to re-paint the window trim on the exterior or the house and replace some bad pieces. I will have them come out soon to do that job as well.

I  had a new cedar fence and deck with stairs and railing, built in the fall of 2011.  I wanted the cedar stained.  The fence  has stucco columns with stone tops.  The stucco was painted. I also had in the price a large wood attic vent replaced, primed and painted, within the overall bid..   I purchased an Angie's Listt coupon for $649 for labor only and was given a $1200 credit towards the work for that coupon. Jerry did the estimate in late April/early May. 
Said the work could be started 3rd week of June and would take 4 days.  The guys would come and work early morning only, as during high heat times, too much paint evaporates during heat of the day.( I would not want to be painting in the 100 degree weather at 3:30 in the afternoon)Jerry called June 9th9sat.) to see if they could start Monday, June 11th, as he had a couple of guys to "keep busy".   I had made arrangmenets to work from home the week of June 18th.. so quickly had to arrnage my schedule to work the week of June 11th.(have animals that had to be kept out of yard, as gates open, sprayers, etc.)
 Three guys showed up 2 days that week(Monday and Thurs) early mornings.  They sprayed and then rolled two coats of stain on the fence.  (fence around yard is 100 'on one side, 140' on one side and 140' on the back side.  Third guy came that Saturday to prime the stucco columns and work a full day by himself.(stucco was heavy textured finish..like peaked cake icing) .
No one showed up the actual week the work was originally scheduled.  I called Jerry after that week, to find out when work would be completed.  I had only paid original coupon and about 1/3 of total price for  paint and supples.   He said they had been slammed with all the "Angie's List" coupon purchaser's and apologized for the delay.   Jerry and helper showed up, over the next 2 weeks, and completed the job.   He mentioned he was having to complete jobs, that he thought were being taken care of by a painter he had contracted with. 
Replacement of vent, stained the deck, painted the columns.  They had to also paint the top of the colums, as the original crew primed them.  Jerry said it was his fault.  He did not explain that to these guys.   Jerry told me to pick out a color I wanted and he paid for the elasomeric(sp) paint and labor for that error.  His main problem  was that he  contracted with another painter that use to work for him.  Jerry said he would not be using him again, though his work was good, the guy was not responsible with work schedules.
I do have future work to be done and told Jerry I would use him, IF he was the one doing the work.   I would also use him, when they are not so slammed.

They're excellent. They did a good painting job and they charged us a reasonable price. They came right on time when they said they would.

The overall job went very well. He is very easy to work with. Jerry describes exactly what he will be doing and how long it will take. I appreciated that a lot. He found a problem during the painting and described what it was and that he could fix it.

Did not use

I had to supervise this job and request corrections for sloppy work and mistakes.  Jerry argued with me as well as my tenant when we asked for changes and mentioned things we were not happy with.  Customer service was lacking with this contractor.  I do not recommend him and will not use him again. I paid extra charges of $475.00 because I felt I had to to get the job completed without being a total disaster.  I had thought that using using Angie's list I would prohibit situations like this. 
(1)  At the onset, when Jerry bid this job, I told him I wanted the color 'swiss coffee' on the walls. We wound up with 'butter' yellow:Swiss coffee was the current color, and a popular color found in all paint stores. Jerry said we would need to match the paint.  I encouraged him to look at my stock of old paint and if the current color was on hand he could take that with him to buy the new paint.  He looked at several cans of my paint.  He picked one and  said, 'that's your color'.  He took the can with him, and came back a week later with paint and began painting. As soon as the living room walls were painted we realized it was the wrong color.  Jerry even pointed out the difference to me.  I remembered that many years ago I had used a 'butter' color.  The walls were now 'butter', where I had asked for 'swiss coffee'.   'Swiss coffee' is a color that can be ordered from any paint company.  The problem:  the other accent colors we picked were meant to go with 'swiss coffee', not 'butter' yellow.  Two different areas in the apartment clashed really badly.  
(2)  Trim and woodwork should have been painted white, but they painted them yellow:Jerry reviewed progress with me the second afternoon after they had already gotten well into the job.  He said 'I'll paint all of this the same color, and all of this the same color', and I messed up by not paying close enough attention and agreeing with him; he was saying he would paint woodwork, trim and walls all the same color, 'butter', because he'd run out of white paint.  Later, when I saw the yellow walls, woodwork and trim in the living room, instead of trim and woodwork white as they were before, and as he had already painted in the bedroom, as they should have been, and as any professional painter would have painted, I realized he had run out of white trim paint, and had gotten my permission to paint it all yellow!  I told him the woodwork and trim had to be white, he charged me $425.00 more, went and bought more paint, and painted the trim and woodwork white as it should have been in the first place.
(3) The bathroom reddish color clashed with the 'butter' yellow:I asked him to repaint the 'butter' lower walls in the bathroom 'white' (remember, I had asked for 'swiss coffee' in the first place, not 'butter').  He charged me $50 extra to correct this problem caused by him not giving me the 'swiss coffee' color I had asked for in the first place.
(4) They did a sloppy job:The first day I noticed an area of wall around the light switch plate in the front hallway was cracked and rough which had not been that way before, but they painted over it anyway (should have sanded/repaired) with the switch cover replaced over the mess (I pointed it out to Jerry, and he had his worker fix and repaint, his worker apologizing and saying he had had a hard time with that one: why did he just paint over his botch and not even attempt to fix or tell anyone about it?), paint splatters on floor and smudges on the walls, and many uneven places. They did not tape anything off.  When I asked Jerry why they did not use tape, he said the tape did not work that well.  He did finally use some blue painter's (his own) tape after I mentioned I had some he could use, and after I had agreed to pay $475 more to get the job done. He left his his workers unsupervised much of the time.  They were supposed to finish the job on Tuesday evening.  I could not be home because of a memorial service. Jerry was to come by the following evening for me to walk through and pay. My tenant came home late Tuesday to a mess:  paint splatters all over the hardwood floor, debris on the floor where they had not swept up, smudges on windows and mirrors throughout, switchplates and socket covers painted over (when I asked Jerry said the socket plates were painted over in the first place...Jerry argued with me every step of the way; I brought over some new socket covers and switch plate covers, he fixed); they had not cleaned up ...debris not swept up (when I asked Jerry about cleanup, he said was there was cat food under the refrigerator..we did clean that up...again, the argument); the lights were left on, the ac left on (Jerry: 'Mam, we don't touch the AC'...another argument), paint cans left in the entry hall, outside water left on, front door unlocked.  He did clean up some of the messes and attempt to fix the mistakes and uneven places throughout at no extra charge.
Concluding Comment:Whew!  Supervising this job was too stressful for me.  Finally, I would like to mention that I have dealt with all sorts of contractors, and I do recognize a good one when I find one.    The day after the conclusion of the paint job, I experienced a breath of fresh air by having the opportunity to deal with a fabulous plumbing contractor.   Found him by word of mouth, not Angie's list.  I won't mention the company here, but will give them a good review elsewhere.  I will say this, among the many reasons this contractor is fabulous is that he went the extra mile for me every step of the way (he was here 5 hours), and just as he was leaving, he stopped and said if you'll give me five more minutes I'll go get my wet vac and clean that area under your sink.  When I told him that was ok, that dirt was already there, he said, "I always leave my jobs cleaner than I found them."  And you know what?   People always call him back.

First he told me the paint had to be purchased through him. I said ok. He never showed up for the appointment and as of today, 9 days later, he still hasn't called to apologize for missing the appointment or to reset the appointment. Thank Goodness for Angie. I can get a refund.