Alpine Painting

Description of Work: I negotiated this deal over the phone and email as we were moving back to Alaska. I asked for every surface that had paint on it to be repainted, and every surface without paint (wood paneling, wood ceilings, wood trim) to stay that way. The work was done while we were driving to Alaska, and Bill, owner of Alpine, knew when we would be arriving at the house. Upon arrival I saw that none of the closets had been painted. Also there was a significant amount of paint drippage on my wood trim, the tile floors, and in the bathtubs, as well as painter's tape on some of the door and window frames. The kitchen and bathroom floors had significant amounts of dirty paint drippings, there were cigarette butts outside around the doors, empty beverage cans lying around the house, and full beverage cans in the fridge. I got the sense that unsupervised painters were in the house doing their thing, with no supervisor ensuring quality control. When Bill showed up at the house the following day to ask if the job met my expectations, I stated a few of the problems above (closets and paint drippings). He said he didn't think closets were part of the deal because "closets are like a whole other room." I repeated that the deal was to repaint every painted surface. He then agreed to paint the closets. He dispatched a guy named Ricky to paint the closets, but by this time our household goods had been delivered and I had a house full of boxes to contend with. I had Ricky paint two of the closets and leave the other two unpainted, in exchange for painting my French doors (they had not painted the set of French doors nor the one painted set of closet doors, although clearly these too are "painted surfaces" and my expectation was that they be painted). As for the paint drips on my woodwork, I sent an email to Bill asking if he was going to come clean the paint off the wood. I did not get a response from Bill, but Ricky said "what else do you want me to do?" after painting the French doors. I told him I wanted the paint off the wood trim. Ricky said "I'll try" and proceeded to scrape at my woodwork with some kind of putty knife. Really. I told him to stop scratching on the wood (yes, it left scratch marks, imagine that). At that point I just wanted anyone from Alipine out of the house. RIcky offered that I should use Windex or Goof Off to get the paint off the wood trim. If only Alpine Painting would have taken the care to wipe up paint drips when wet. Bottom line - the business owner didn't seem interested at all interested in QCing the work. He would drop Ricky off and pick him up, but never came inside to check on the quality or progress. I also don't think Bill was very truthful with me, and here's why. Before starting the job he told me on the phone details about the inside of the house that indicated he personally came to meet my tenant and do the estimate. However the last thing he said at the end of the job was that he wished he'd have sent a more reliable person to do the estimate (because the estimator did not notice that the walls were a cream color and the ceiling was pure white). Perhaps he was making a joke - I shouldn't have sent myself to do the estimate, ha ha. However I don't think he was joking, rather I think he

Description of Work: They painted 3 sides of my house. They also stripped the cedar siding on the front of my house and restained it.