Donovan's Painting

It was fine.

unknown

They were very professional, friendly and did a great job. Very responsive to questions.

unknown

Craig Punte, owner, was quick to respond to my original phone call, and all subsequent calls to him. He addressed all of my questions and responded appropriately to concerns and requests. His crew was prompt and efficient. They willingly completed a few additional tasks (like pressure washing the sidewalk bricks.) I paid a little extra to have some damaged boards replaced, but the quoted price included patching holes bored by bees. My husband and I were very pleased with the quality of the work, and the way our house now looks. It was way over due!

The painters sent a representative to my home who was at first very courteous but as soon as it became clear that he would be speaking with me, as opposed to some one else who would be "in charge" or the homeowner he became distant and slightly aloof. In short, he was unprofessional in the extreme. To clarify, I look much younger than I am, but I am in fact the homeowner. I would have expected a high level of respect and even friendliness, no matter my appearance, and in fact every other professional who came into my home fulfilled my expectation. I know his problem was my age because he attempted to bring up the topic. My impression that he was not taking the job seriously was furthered as while touring the space he didn't measure, unlike every other painter. He did not do any math, or even attempt to fill out an estimate form. He asked me what price point I had in mind in a tone that implied he was humoring me and I was wasting his time, while standing in my foyer, ready to walk out the door. I gave him a rough idea of what we'd been quoted already, and what we wanted to stay under. His response was something to the effect of "well, I would estimate this as almost twice that much, sorry." He was highly unprofessional and down right unpleasant. I can't speak to the work Donovan Painters does, but I would never give them a chance. There is absolutely no reason to treat someone like that, especially when you are in their home.

It went very well. The crew worked very hard and the results are beautiful. Owner of company was very responsive and out at the worksite often. Painting was done very well. House looks awesome at a very reasonable price! They use Sherwin Williams Duration paint, one of the highest rated exterior paints out there. Came out one day to pressure wash with brush and TSP. Returned a week later to paint. I highly recommend this company!

This review is actually for two separate jobs, both done in late spring to early summer of this year. In the first, I hired Donovan's painting for exterior painting of all trim, doors, and shutters. I have worked with them in the past and found this experience to be very typical: I paid a good price for excellent quality work. I'm certain I could have found a cheaper contractor if I'd wanted, but Donovan's does excellent work with high quality products. I was very satisfied with the quality of the job, and Craig kept in great communication with me regarding scheduling, as this was a very busy season for exterior work. The second job was about a month later - we had our deck rebuilt, and it was ready to be stained. I received some much less expensive quotes, but after checking with them, all of the companies who were cheaper wanted to use sprayers to apply the stain, which to my way of thinking is not the right way to do it. I had a homeowner's association requirement to use semi-transparent (rather than solid) stain, and had to comply with that. Craig told me I wouldn't be happy with the look, and he was right - but that's no bearing on the work his guys did. This time I actually did have some issues with workmanship--some stain had gotten on the synthetic deck boards we used, leaving marks that we couldn't get out. Craig sent his guys back with a product that cleaned it right up, which I wouldn't have thought was even possible. Otherwise the job went great, and I was very pleased with the final product (even if I do still wish my HOA would approve a solid color stain instead.) Overall, I'd say Donovan's Painting does very high quality work at a more than fair price.

First I should say that the dollar figure is only a guess, I don't actually remember what it was anymore. I've hired Donovan's for all my interior painting jobs for the last several years, and have always been very satisfied. This particular job was just to paint the nursery in a new home we were about to move into. Donovan's was very accommodating of our schedule ( we wanted to paint after the closing, but with enough time before we moved in that the new paint smell would fade.) We arrived in the new home to find the nursery expertly painted, with no problems whatsoever, and it was ready for our daughter to sleep in that first night. Now she's about ready to move into another bedroom, and they're already scheduled to do that painting as well. I've worked with cheaper painters before, but I've always been consistently happy with Donovan's.

Awful experience. Dealing with Craig Punte is extremely frustrating. After submitting my down payment I heard nothing from Craig for several weeks. I called multiple times and Craig would either avoid my calls or tell me that he thought he would be able to start my job soon just to placate me. I left several messages on his voice mail and I continued to get the run around. I believe that he used caller ID to avoid calls from my known phone numbers as I could only get him to answer his cell when I called from different numbers. On the initial date that he said his crew was going to show up at my home, they were a no-call / no-show. I called Craig and he gave me a lame excuse as to why his crew did not show up. Finally the job was completed, over two months after I had sent him the deposit in the mail. The quality of his crew's work was decent, but I would strongly warn people to avoid this company as Craig Punte is unprofessional and does not communicate well. SOOOO FRUSTRATING... Update: Reactivated this account and discovered this review was still pending from years ago. and had not been completed. In response to Donovan's; yes, you did a job for me. Painted the exterior roof trim for our townhouse in Ellicott City. You might not recall the job, but I will never forget how painful it was getting you to complete your work. Anyway, this was a long time ago. Just figured it was still worthwhile to let people know that this company was very unprofessional. Your mileage may vary.

The inside of the house was done very timely and it was done very well. The outside was done by a different crew and they got paint everywhere. The foreman argued with me, so I got the owner out here, and then they got the crew back out to clean up the paint. They got some of it done and left. Then they argued when I asked them to come back and finish so I gave up. The crew was wonderful, on time and clean for the inside. The outside crew was not very professional.

Craig was a joy to work with, very eager and responsive. His guys did a good job overall. There are a few areas that need to be touched up, but Craig seemed more than happy to send someone back to fix things up.

They were here when they promised and their crew worked into the night and on a weekend day. They did an excellent job, unfortunately our windows are painted shut and I need to call them to come out. We would definitely hire them again!

Craig Punte and crew were very professional in providing timely cost estimates, and starting and completing work as scheduled. The work was reasonably priced and was completed with care and precision. Cleanup was very satisfactory. Craig and his crew were always very polite, and easy to do business with. Use of Senior Citizen Discount a plus.