Cascade Painters LLC

I like Joe when he came out for estimate.  To his credit he did come a second time to go over colors and arranged a representative from Sherwin Williams to visit and "color consult".  I liked him and awarded him the job, even though he was the lowest bidder because I thought he really seemed concerned about customer service. 

Once they started, things went down hill.  They didn't show the first day because of "personnel issues".  The second day they were late, and only one of the crew showed up because of a conflict with the supervisor.  Joe was there, and actually did most of the work.  The worker that was there was good.  Although they finally got the entire interior painted and Joe did much of the work, it was rushed and below my expectations.  There were two things that were most important to me that I covered with Joe several times before they started;  fixing the cracks in the ceiling and filling holes/nail pops.  The cracks never got fixed because they were understaffed and actually he didn't even talk to me aboout it before painting over them.  The nail pops were barely fixed and the fix is worse than the original in many cases because it is clear they just ran a putty knife over the nail hole and then painted it.  Now I have big streaks of obvious putty instead of a tiny nail hole.  The other thing that I covered repeatedly was that he would do two coats.  He explained how he started on one side of the room and worked around and then would repeat it.  The problem is when I watched him (through plastic that was put up) he only put one coat on and there was no effort to put another coat on.

By the end I just wanted it done with.  Joe was trying to work with minimally, but he was obviously stretched too thin and having financial difficulties.  Even though I gave deposit of $1500 up front ostensibly to cover paint but he was continuously running out, and at one point they wouldn't extend him credit to get more so I had to cover with credit card.  Then he wanted full payment before the job was completely done. 

Bottom line, is I think had things been better for them both financially and with personnel it may have been a different experience.  I did like Joe and think his heart was in the right place but the whole experience was frustrating. That experience is why I joined Angies List because I never want to go through that again with other projects.  I should have joined before I painted.

Added 11/30:  When I checked Angies List to make sure my report was accepted I noticed that they advertise that they take credit cards.  I had to update with this information:  When I originally spoke with Joe he told me he accepted credit cards, no problem.  Once he had the job that changed.  I had to force the issue to put the initial deposit on a card and I'm glad I did.  By the end of the job when he was looking for payment (before the job was complete) he guilted me about using a card.  What a hassle.

The date and amount I put was an estimate as it was nearly a year ago but fairly accurate.