Karen Harper Professional Painting Service

Where to begin? I only paid her because she is so off balance that in the moment I felt threatened. After 2 1/2 days work, the paint wasn’t even dry and she wanted her money even though the ceiling was cracking and bubbling everywhere. I asked her if she could wait as my husband would be home in five minutes and we needed to find a solution. She started screaming like a complete mad woman and slammed my door so hard I thought it would break. I was so in shock by her behavior. She then got in her truck in my driveway and was screaming guttural sounds like a mad woman and saying the f word and my name. To say unprofessional is too huge of an understatement. Later she texted me that is was my ceilings fault and she could do nothing to make it better. Upon inspection, there were issues with even the wall painting. Very poorly done. Completely opposite of how she portrayed herself as being a perfectionist. We had to hire someone else to repair her work and then my husband and I had to totally repaint the whole ceiling and walls. So yes she could have made it better but all she wanted was her money. She didn’t want to make it right. I didn’t even want to write this at first because she is so unstable. But people need to know. And by now I have changed my locks and I have my alarm system hooked back up. Also have made the police aware. After all of this I was contacted by someone else who has went through the same thing and is in the process of a law suit. Please beware of this person. Hiring her put us through weeks of heartache.

It was a week and a half project. The staff was Karen (owner) her daughter and her son, basically family. The cost was over $5,000. When Karen came over to provide us with a estimate, we had a half wall between the Kitchen and great room. I explained to Karen that the wall was going to be demo’d and that once done, I would like for it to be painted. She said okay. She went about writing up the estimate explaining two coats of primer, two coats of paint, the cost breakdown of the trims and wainscoting, removal of the wall paper and the cost of paint. We agreed and she got started. Day one and two all three of them show up. Day three, only two show up. Day four, five and etc, same - only two showed up. During the middle of the project, Karen informs me that the job might take longer than anticipated because the cabinets and trims require more coats of primer than expected. She then proceeded to tell me it would cost extra for her time. Excuse me? Failing the timeline was not due to having to apply extra coats of paint. It was because the job required 3 workers but only 2 showed up. Plus, the whole point of getting an estimate was to establish a price for the job. This should not be treated as a starting point. As a professional painter, it is her job to determine the number costs required. She ended up finishing the job within her communicated timeline but not because she did it properly. She barely caulked. We can see the gaps between the wainscoting, there were gaps between the trims and drywall/ceiling. When she removed the dry wall, she used a lawn spray so the chemicals got all over my ceiling and stained them. She also did not remove or properly sand/plaster the walls to make them smooth. You can feel and see the texture from the wallpaper glue. The paint on the cabinets and cabinet doors are already staring to chip off. I went to open a drawer and my finger nail took the paint right off. She also did not use proper finish on the cabinets - she went with satin as oppose to semi gloss. Speaking of finish, she used matte in the kitchen! Why would anyone use a matte finish in a very high traffic room? Plus, to finish on time, she did not appy the extra coats of primer or paint because we can see the previous color bleeding through!! During the time she was at my house painting, we hired a handyman to take down the half wall. I told Karen to leave the walls around the demo area alone until they were done. She said okay. When the demo was done, I asked her to come back to finish painting. At this point, I had made the final payment since she was pretty much done and had to come back to finish the area around the demo and to do touch ups. She then proceeded to tell me that the demo area was not part of the quote and that I would have to pay her to come back! I had already paid her an amount larger than what others were charging and she wanted me to pay her more for something we already agreed upon?!?!? I could not believe it!! We did most of this exchange over text. I was so appalled by her response to charge me extra I told her not to come back ever again. Since then, we hired another person to paint other rooms in our house and this guy’s work blows hers out of the water! And he’s a fraction of the cost. He properly removed the wall paper, the glue and he preps he area so well, you do not see any gaps or the previous color bleeding through. He applied the proper primer for trims (shellac) and he makes sure there’s enough coats so that the previous color does not bleed through. He even explained to us how Karen’s job was done improperly. I highly DO NOT recommend Karen Harper Painting to anyone!

no work done

Wonderful experience. Great job, very professional. Would definitely hire again.

I contacted Karen to fix plaster on my ceiling and walls in my kitchen after water damage from an ice jam problem and to paint my entire kitchen. She arrived and gave me an estimate of the time and cost and advice on which paint she thought best. While there, I mentioned to her that we also had some damage to the bedroom ceiling and after examining the bedroom, advised that she could fix the bedroom ceiling paster for no extra labor charge. I am thrilled with how my kitchen looks and the bedroom ceiling looks as good as new. She arrived at the scheduled time to do the work and I was very, very impressed with her professionalism. Everything always also kept very neat. It was a pleasure to have her work for me. I would recommend her to anyone.