GEORGE DECORATING INC

Initial contact was a little difficult in that we played a lot of phone tag, but eventually scheduled the time for an estimate. I am a designer so this was for a client/friend of mine. George was right on time and polite and professional. He gave me a verbal estimate of $800 for all the work and said he was available to do the job the following week (another estimate I rec'd was $2000 for the same work). I could not let him know until the following Tuesday that my client had approved his estimate and at that point George was no longer available that week - fair enough. He could not give me any dates, however, that he was available, just that he would call me back. Approximately two weeks later, George called around 9pm to say he could start the job the next day. While my client and I are very flexible, she was out of town and I could not be at her house the following day so we had to pass. Again, he could not give me any other dates. Another two weeks go by, and George calls me around 5pm on the Friday before Thanksgiving to say he can do the job Mon & Tues (week of Thanksgiving). My client was going to be out of town the whole week, and I had another job that Mon/Tues so could not be at her house. I told George we needed more advance notice - to which he replied "it's Friday, I am available Monday, that's three days"... hmmm, OK George. So my next question was what other dates could he give me - and he replied that we should just call him when my client was available. I told him my client has plenty of availability, but it does take some scheduling so what dates did he have a couple weeks out. He then let me know that he was leaving the country for a month right after Thanksgiving. End result, I need to find another wallpaperer, because after getting an estimate for this job in October, it was impossible to schedule George, he would not provide any dates, called to try and "squeeze" the job in last minute, and then left the country --which he apparently wasn't going to let me know about until I kept pressing him to provide dates for this job. Frustrating, to say the least. His estimate was certainly attractive, and I had contacted him based on the other report here on Angie's List, but I have no idea if the work would have been of any quality - I just couldn't get him to commit to any dates to actually do it.

George gave me an estimate on painting the exterior of our house of $6,000 to $7,000. He was able to start on the job in a couple of days. He and his crew of two painters who have been with him for years arrived promptly at 8 AM as expected. In a week they had cleaned off the wood mold, carefully stained the house and painted all the trim. George saved me money by fixing a window ledge (I thought I needed to buy a new window). He stained the deck so it looks like teak (much better that previous deck cleaners), purchased stones for the ground to enhance and save the paint in back of the house. I hired him on the spot to paint the garage too. He installed a new door, repaired the wood around the window, stained and painted the 2/12 car garage for $600. His prices are extremely reasonable for the quality of the work.