Sarasota Painting & Wallcovering Inc

I recently hired Ray Parker to apply grass cloth wallpaper in the guest bathroom of my professional office. His work ethic and attention to detail are second to none! Highly recommend!

Ray Parker was hired to paint the interior of a high-end 6000 square foot home and 2 exterior walls and the patio area. The project price was $27,000. The project was broken into 1/3rds. The contract clearly specified the paint to be used - specifically Sherwin Williams Duration. Prior to being hired Ray assured us he had a team of 5 to 6 painters that would be used. Although all the other paint contractors had projected 3 weeks to completion; Ray projected 4 weeks. Given that we wanted the job done right, we agreed to allow the extra time. Ray insisted on a large upfront deposit - that should have been the first sign.Much to our surprise only 2 people showed up .... with the exception of 1 day in which a 3rd guy appeared. At the end of 2 weeks, when only approximately 15% of the home had any color on the trim & walls, we began to question what was going on. At this time Ray began insisting on receiving another payment. We FOOLISHLY wrote him a check with his promise that he would not deposit it until he finished the first third of the house. Needless to say he deposited it immediately. We started asking about where the rest of the team was and also began questioning how many coats of paint had been applied. The contract clearly stated all existing walls would receive 2 full coats of Duration, all new walls (we had done some remodeling) would receive 1 coat of primer + 2 full coats of duration. We then learned that Ray had not used Duration on our exterior and had used the absolute cheapest paint he could get from Sherwin Williams (promar 400 and covermax) for our trim and ceilings. Furthermore he had decided NOT to prime some of our new walls -- and had determined 1 coat of paint was, and I quote "good enough". When we said ...um, the contract clearly states that primer is to be used and 2 full coats of Duration ... he literally said what he had used was "good enough". In my 20 plus years of being in business, I've never seen someone so outrageously and deliberately sign a contract he had absolutely zero intention of following through on. We realized there was absolutely no way we could trust this guy to continue so we asked for part of our money back as we would now need to hire another painter to finish the house AND to repaint the exterior, interior trim, interior ceilings, and add the 2nd coat of duration to the interior walls. His answer to us was "I'll see you in mediation"; at which point, he literally walked out the door. I might add one of his guys broke the shower glass door (he literally dropped it and it shattered into a million little shards of glass); we brought this up to Ray as well...and his answer was "it was broken when he picked it up". It was so shocking on so many levels. We're in touch with our lawyer and will be sueing him. He clearly has been trough it before and doesn't care. I STRONGLY STRONGLY recommend staying away from him. The whole reason we joined Angie's list was to find another painter.