Jerry Long Painting

The good stuff - Jerry's crew did a great job with the painting work.  The cabinets are gorgeous, very smooth (and the paint is still adhering well 2+ years later).  The island has just the antiqued look I was going for.  Paint on the walls, ceiling, trim and doors was done well - clean lines, no slop.  We had a glitch with the wood used on the cabinet doors being faulty, which wasn't discovered until after Jerry's crew put in lots of time sanding and prepping them.  It could have turned into a finger-pointing nightmare, but Jerry worked it out with my cabinet maker and redid the work when the new doors came in at no extra cost to me, for which we were grateful.

The not so good - our problem came at the end.  After the cabinets were painted, there were just a few little areas needing touch ups.  Jerry said he'd do them after the cabinet doors were reinstalled and hardware put on, since that usually creates a few more areas needing touch ups.  Despite numerous emails and promises to come sometime, it never happened and he has never gotten back in touch.  I have no idea why he'd invest 3 weeks of work in a job (doing a great job!) and then bail with probably 4-6 hours of touch ups left that we had to deal with ourselves (and leave a once happy customer frustrated).  He also said he'd repair damage from an old ceiling leak, but since he never came back, he didn't give the estimate or do that work.  I had paid him all but $400 on the contract, and maybe I should have withheld payment til we were 100% complete instead of 95%.

I just moved to Plano from Ohio about a year ago.  The previous owners of my new house had hired a company to paint the entire house during the selling process that took many, many shortcuts (such as overlaying heavy texture over peeling wallpaper leaving now peeling wallpaper plus texture) and did an overall terrible job.  Jerry assured me that his team would finish removing the wallpaper that I myself began while waiting for his schedule to open up, sand the gouges in my woodwork, remove the clumpy caulking everywhere and repair all cracks and holes in the walls, ceilings and woodwork.
I waited for about two weeks for Jerry's current commitments to wrap up before he could begin work on my project - which was acceptable.  I began to get the feeling that my project was not going to be given his full attention, nor prioritization, when he only sent two men for the job and gave them direction to focus on the kitchen despite my request to start in my powder room ? which I had already removed the commode and sink to better accommodate his team to the inconvenience of my family.  Additionally, Jerry gave the direction to take two significant shortcuts: not removing the remaining wallpaper glue from the walls before starting and only wanting one coat of mud to smooth the walls - when I knew that this process usually requires two.  This resulted in many air bubbles from the peeling glue underneath and extra work for the guys on the crew to get it closer to my expectation.
Next, Jerry communicated to me verbally that I needed to provide him with my paint colors by room and which kind of paint I wanted and he would ?take care of it?.  What actually happened is that I myself ended up purchasing all paint except the white primer and white ceiling paint used in my kitchen when the crew leader informed me that I actually was responsible for this task.  This added $500 to my personal expenditures that was neither budgeted for this job nor, in my opinion, adequately communicated before we began.
Lastly, Jerry interrupted my project midway for ?another big job that accelerated their schedule by a week? leaving my two bathrooms undone and in chaos for FOUR weeks.  So not only did I wait two weeks for my project to begin ? which is completely understandable and acceptable to my mind ? but he also then interrupted mine ? which is not understandable, nor acceptable.  Jerry did not accept my request for a discount for my family?s inconvenience and left a small enough portion of my project that made it difficult to find another company to fill in and complete the job. 
Most importantly his direction to hurry resulted in a rush from the crew on the last few steps of my kitchen/ breakfast/ living rooms to get to your other more important job and a complete lack of attention to the detail he promised.  I still had gouges in my woodwork, clumpy caulking around my doors and windows, cracks and unrepaired damage to walls, ceiling and woodwork and I had fully HALF of the bookcase shelves/ drawers in my living room left unpainted ? all of which I had to contract with another company to re-do correctly.
So, at the end of the day, his promises were unmet, his estimate was higher than initially projected, my family was inconvenienced for four weeks too long, and I had to hire another company to repair the original problems I hired Jerry for.  And while the crew was very responsive to any corrections that were needed to their work, the fact is that I hired Jerry to perform that function so I wouldn?t have to.

Jerry Long was recommended by the vendor who installed and constructed my built-in closet cabinetry. Jerry came and looked at the project and gave me a price quote. We scheduled for him to come a couple of days after the built-ins were installed. Juan arrived on time and prepared. He taped off carpet and hardware. They started by caulking all the built-in's seams, outside cabinetry joints, everything. The prep work by itself took a day and a half. Jose came to join Juan when the painting of the cabinetry started. There was a total of 12 drawers, 12 cabinet doors and over 50 shelves. I was concerned when they got ready to paint the shelves because they had to do it on my driveway, there is not a shop. They do all the work at the job site. I was not aware of this so I was surprised. Juan and Jose put plastic and taped my garage doors, fence, top part of house and even driveway so there would not be overspray on my house. They were very thorough about their work. After the initial paint day, Juan came back by himself to finish the job of installing the cabinet doors and touching up a few spots. There were a few areas that dripped and I remember thinking, there is no way they are going to be able to repair this without painting this section again. Juan did a fantastic job, you cannot even tell where there ever was a drip. They did such a good job on my closet and built ins, I decided to have them do my front door which had weathered so bad from the sun exposure. It looked horrible. Juan was also the one that came to stain my door. He was just as meticulous and thorough as he was with my closet. He sanded my door down to wood, stained with a beautiful Red Mahogany to match the interior stain. Juan came 3 separate days to apply Poly coat. There were a couple of areas I was concerned about, but by the time Juan finished, my door looked brand new. They did a good job of cleaning up after themselves. They were unobtrusive and pleasant. Jerry came over a few days after completion to inspect the work and to pick up the payment. I plan on using them again in the very near future for my next cabinet painting project.