Lightfoot Painting & Construction

Excellent. On time. High quality craftsmen. Personable service. Low bid out of three bids received. Couldn't be happier.

unknown

Terrific. Matt is an agreeable guy and his crew was prompt, clean (as was possible) and very professional. This quoted price is what was charged, and was comparitively very reasonable to other bids we'd been given.I recommend them and will be using them again in the near future.

Matt was on time for the appointment and very personable. We walked him through what we wanted to do for each project and got some input on our plans. He was very prompt with his estimate, which we received via email the following day. He told us without elaborating that he was unable to provide an estimate for the deck work (he would likely have used a subcontractor for that since it's not in his area of expertise, which is fine), but his estimates for some of the other work were surprisingly high.
When I asked for a breakdown of the painting estimate (which was $2000 more than that of another highly regarded painter on Angie's List), and said I wanted to revise the scope for the master bathroom reno and get an updated quote, he refused, saying, and quot;Sorry but I am not able to break down the price any further, I really do not have the time to spend on one job. I hope you understand.and quot; To be honest, no, I don't. I cannot spend $29k on just these three projects, especially since we are also replacing our upstairs carpeting and have to completely dig up and replace our driveway (and still do a hot tub to help my chronic pain). I needed to know how much he was quoting for each room so I could decide which ones we might want to tackle ourselves and which ones I'd hire him to do. My main concern was our bonus room, which needs a lot of drywall repair (the original contractor did a shoddy mudding job). Even if he only repaired and painted that room but also remodeled our bathrooms, I wouldn't consider that and quot;one joband quot;.
I also wanted to revise the scope of the master bathroom remodel because $18,500 was much more than we wanted to spend. We do not want to overimprove and not be able to recoup our investment when we sell the house in 5 or so years. I asked him a second time to revise the estimate with some changes in mind, and he never replied.
The second contractor we spoke to gave us a much higher quote for the bathrooms, bordering on the absurd (she seemed to think we'd spend $11,000 alone on vanities, medicine cabinets, tile and the shower doors for the master bath; Matt's allowances were much more reasonable). A third contractor (who is currently doing a $400k home remodel and has hired our previous solo general contractor) told us Matt's price was not unrealistic for our original plans. He, however, made numerous suggestions on changes in scope that would save us money (after he explained the challenge and cost for heating our floors, we eliminated that from the plans immediately). His expert advice and explanations on the process for certain tasks has us completely revising our plans and curtailing them significantly, and also revising the plans for the kids' bathroom (which will make that reno slightly more expensive but trouble-free in the future). He is willing to do the bathroom renos on a time and materials basis, but that is likely partly due to our long-standing relationship to the contractor he hired, since his work schedule is quite tight. He also knows how important it is to me that our original contractor, who expanded our deck several years ago, do the deck work.
I really liked talking with Matt and am sure he does quality work, but I am trying to put my kids through college, not his. A contractor needs to be willing to work with a client if they have a budget in mind and want to revise the scope (or at least, not ignore the request), or tell them upfront he doesn't take contracts for less than a certain amount of money. I'm glad to know his remodel estimate was realistic but don't feel the painting one was, and without a breakdown, I don't know which aspect of it made it so expensive. I likely would have hired him had he been willing to work with us on finetuning our plans, and I was surprised that he refused to even consider it.

Matt and his crew are superb. This was a big job and they completed it in less than 2 weeks. The work was expertly done. Matt is a true professional and great to work with...they first pressured washed the entire cedar siding exterior, all the trim, ceiling in our overhangs, and the entire deck. The house sideing and trim/gutters were then primed and painted with 2 coats of high quality exterior paint. They then restained the deck. The results were excellent and reasonably priced. We would work with them again.