Dave Southard Painting

Daniel painted our kitchen... not a lot of wall to cover, but tricky, in that there are lots of windows, openings, etc. He also cocked around the baseboard and all other wood trim which I would have never thought of - and which really made a positive difference in the look. Daniel was very clean and professional in his work. I will hire him again for any future work.

First, Dave did the work himself instead of sending out someone who may or may be as skilled as he is. He came when he said he would and did the work in the time he indicated it would take. He is a perfectionist and seems to take pride in a job well done, which is what you want in a painter. On our first meeting when he came to give us an estimate, he suggested that I buy a quart of the color paint I had chosen and paint a test area to make sure it was the color I wanted. It was a great suggestion, and I ended up going one step lighter than I thought I wanted. At that first meeting, he noticed a crack in the drywall in the corner of a room we were not going to paint, and said he could fix it for us if we had any of the paint left from when the room was painted. I said that would be great. I had to remind him later when he was about finished with the painting, but he cheerfully fixed it and did a good job of it. Dave is very friendly and personable with a lively sense of humor. We have a little poodle that I tried my best to keep out of his way. She occasionally could not contain herself, however, and interrupted his work, but he was always gracious and took it in good humor. When he was nearly finished with his work, he cracked a mirror putting it back up in the bathroom. He took the cracked mirror with him, got a new mirror exactly like it, and came back to replace it in a very timely manner -- at his own expense. The accident in no way diminished our good opinion of him, because he is so professional and these things can happen to even to the best workers. All in all, Dave did an excellent job and his attention to detail was much appreciated.

We just called two or three companies and he was actually the lowest bid. He came right over that day.

Dave is professional, punctual, friendly and considerate. He came out to give me a quote, let me know when he could be there, called me before and on day of to let me know when to expect him. He also did some repair on a crack in a wall. I have no complaints. I'm only sorry his work got ruined with the flooring contractor,,, I hightly recommend Dave!

They were kind of sloppy. The staff was friendly.

Very good work, very friendly guy. He showed up when he said he would. I felt like we got a great value for our $$. I highly recommend David.

He had a two day window. The work was done efficiently. One board was broken when removing the baseboards. He replaced the board and numbered the boards for the flooring workers who would put them back in place. I answered questions in the process that I had not thought about. No assumptions were made and I appreciated that attention to detail. Dave Southard did an excellent job. I would hire him again.

Mr. Southard did a good job of cleaning up the garage after removing the 'popcorn'.

He did very good work, cleaned up afterward, and the price was in the midrange for the work performed. We have hired him enough to be comfortable giving him a key to our house so he can work when we are not home. We plan to have him finish painting the rest of the interior of our house in the next month or two. Sometimes he can be a little slow to return phone calls, but arrived promtly to start work when he said he would. Overall a very good experience.

I called Dave one morning to ask him if he would come out to give me an estimate on the two rooms I wanted to have painted, he came out the next morning at 9 AM to let me know how much it would be. He then was able to come back within a week to paint. He arrived right on time, in fact was early! Both of my rooms were painted and he was just cleaning up when I got home from lunch. Did a great job. Extremely nice and definitely will be calling him again to paint any other rooms in my home.

Dave gave us the best bid, and had the best qualifications, so we asked him to do the work. He did it very professionally, putting protection over carpets, moving furniture to the center of the room and covering it while he peeled wallpaper and painted. He had his 'system' down pat, and worked quickly. He was amenable to re-doing one room, (due to our bad color decision), and as agreed, we did pay a reasonable extra amount for this extra work. Overall, I'd hire him again 'in a heartbeat'.

Dave came in and went right to work. He taped and caulked the seams and I was amazed at the difference that made. He went over the areas that I did myself and was able to make the house look complete. He did our two-story walls with ease. He was super easy to work with and I felt very comfortable with him in our home. He worked with our schedules and was easy to schedule.

Dave Southard is one of the best contractors I've ever worked with. He showed up when he said he would, did the work exactly as promised and was extremely professional throughout the entire process. His quote was very reasonable and the final price did not change. The quality of his work was equally impressive. I would gladly recommend him to anyone looking for an honest, experienced, dependable, and affordable painting contractor. We plan to do more painting soon, and Dave is the only person I plan to call.

We called David and left a message on his cell phone. He promptly called back and arranged a meeting time to come and look at the work to be done. He arrived promptly and gave us a very fair bid. We had already attempted to remove part of the wallpaper, but he advised us to not continue to do that, as he could seal it before trying to texture. Work was begun, as scheduled, one week later and took two entire days, 8 to 5. David arrived every day on time and began work promptly. The first day he covered every area of each room that did not need to be dealt with to protect our floors, woodwork and windows. He sealed every wall that had wallpaper on it and when that dried, he applied texture, matching the existing texture on the other walls very well. The second day, he blue-taped everything and then began painting. He completed the job, as expected on the second day and left the area as clean as the day he began it. I would most definitely use him again and may do so on our next painting job. We inquired whether he did much exterior painting and he said that he had begun to concentrate mostly on interior remodeling.

He said that he didn't want to do the work and was very knowledgeable. I was really disappointed. He said that if I needed anything else to call. He has a good character, but he just doesn't do that type of work any more.

Dave called back promptly and came to the house the same day to give me an estimate. I asked Dave if he could do the work quickly, he had another job starting the follow Monday but said he would work on Saturday to get the job done. He textured two bathroom for me. The work was done in about six hours, I enjoyed Dave's company and he did a good job. He never took a break for lunch and cleaned up before he left. He also showed up exactly at 8AM when he said he would.

It went very well and would use him again in the future.

The job took four days. Mr. Southard promptly arrived each day at 8:00 a.m. as stated. He cleaned up at the end of each day except for the one day when there was a power outage in our subdivision. He did exactly what was asked for and quoted in the service contract, and did a quality job.

Everything went fast and smooth. We are very pleased with the end results.

Upon calling Dave for a quote, he answered on the first call and was able to come by and give a quote that evening. Upon looking over at what I was wanting he gave a very upfront and detailed decription of what it would take to get it done etc. and a timeline on how long it would take and the steps within the process and when he could do it. Dave was punctual and professional and very easy to work with and we set a date for work to be done. He showed up the 3 days he was there at 8am and worked until he was done with the task at hand and offered to stay later if needed to get the work done. He sealed over the wallpaper in the kitchen/dining area and then textured over it with a knockdown texture to match all the inside walls and did a very good job at getting that done. He painted the Kitchen/Dining area and then on to Laundry/Computer rooms and I even had him do the Master bath at the last minute and on top of that we didnt like how the color of Kitchen/Dining area so he repainted that area and turned out Great! Overall a Good experience with Dave Southard Paitning with no issues or complaints. I would highly recommend, and will use again in the future.

Dave Southard responded same day to our request for an estimate, following our research done on Angie's list, for this job. He provided a written estimate, and was receptive to all clarifications and questions we had, prior to him starting the work. He is a no-nonesense, straight shooter, that shows up when scheduled, works hard and steady the whole day. He protected the floors and surrounding areas with his own dropcloths, and cleaned up after himself. The end result was what we expected, and there were no issues.

He arrived on time, worked consistently and did an excellent job. He planned his work out and then worked his plan.

Dave was prompt, knowledgeable, reliable and very professional. He even provided samples that helped us pick out colors for a beautiful glazed finish in our formal dining and kitchen areas. Our experience with him couldn't have been better. We would not hesitate to hire Dave again!

I was very pleased with Dave's work. He was prompt and worked steadily throughout the day, making excellent progress, considering that he was working by himself. He moved furniture to the center of the room, covered it, removed electrical plates, vents, draperies, blinds, etc., to do a professional paint job. When the room was painted and the paint dry, he moved the furniture back and even vacuumed the floor to pick up all the bits of pieces of wallpaper left over from the stripping! I think he charged very fairly for his work - particularly since my incorrect choice of the first paint color caused him to have to repaint one room. ;D I wouldn't hesitate in calling on him the next time!

Here are two minor events that happened during the week that should have been a predictor for Dave's behavior toward me on his last day of work: 1) He had one of his sons come and paint with him one day. Super sweet kid who did a good job. However, Dave lost his temper a few times and yelled at him. One time I was on the phone with a customer and I couldn't even hear what the customer was saying because Dave was yelling so loud. 2) During the course of the week, I got the flu and my husband called to tell him not to come in since I was ill. Dave got upset and was not understanding at all. We thought he might appreciate the fact that I wasn't exposing him to my sickness, but no he got very angry. We did let him come in so that it wouldn't mess with his schedule, but how rude not to be more considerate of your customers. Now to the story: On Monday, towards the end of the day it was apparent that Dave was going to have to come back the next day and repaint our office. Dave was painting it red and red is not an easy color to paint. The paint was spotting and needed another coat. You could tell he was very agitated that he was going to have to come back and give the room another coat of paint. He came to our house the next morning and began to paint. I walked by a couple of hours later and saw him putting on the doors, and made the comment that it looked like he was done. I noticed that there was some red paint in the corner on our white crown molding and asked him if he could fix it. He said he could and I went back to what I was doing. Moments later I hear a crash and came running to make sure he was okay. The "crash" happened when he stood on a cheap little 3 shelf bookshelf and broke it. That's when he totally flipped out. He started cussing and yelling saying that, "our furniture was cheap and that he was sick of having to work around all of our stuff all week." I told him that he wasn't being fair because 1) We had offered to move all of our stuff to accommodate him to which he replied, "that's not a problem, I paint around stuff all the time." 2) I asked him why he chose to stand on a $50 piece of furniture rather than move it, to which he replied, "what I should have done and what I did do are two different things." Then he started going off on how our furniture was cheap and that if we had a real wood bookshelf it wouldn't have broken. As if I would have wanted him to stand on an expensive piece of furniture anyway. Bottom line, cheap or expensive don't stand on a customer's furniture and then flip out when you break it! After the incident, I went into the bedroom to call my husband to come home. I felt very unsafe and scared and did not want to be home alone with Dave. Right after I called my husband, Dave left saying absolutely nothing to me. He just got his stuff and left, which I wasn't unhappy about, considering I was totally freaked out. Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story. About 6 hours after the incident, Dave shows up at our house, unannounced, with a black bookcase to replace the one he broke. Rather than asking us how much the bookcase was worth, he took it upon himself to go to Wal-Mart and purchase a $20 bookcase, the one that he broke, cost $50, but it was a nice gesture, nonetheless. When my husband asked Dave what had happened earlier in the day and told him that I was upset that he had yelled, cussed, and insulted us, he got in my husband's face and said that I was lying. He got within inches of my husband's face and kept yelling, "You weren't there, you weren't there." I was inside the house and could hear everything Dave was yelling. To make things even better, a few of our neighbors were outside and could also hear everything Dave was yelling. Dave totally denied everything he had done earlier in the day. Rather than acknowledging what he had said and apologizing for his behavior, he called me a liar. On top of that, he accused us of trying to stiff him out of payment. Ironically, we never had a written contract, estimate or an invoice, so we had no way of knowing how much we owed him. We knew about how much it was going to cost, but not a definitive figure. Of course we had no intentions of “stiffing him,” my husband just felt that he needed to apologize for the way he had treated me earlier in the day. When Dave left our house, he never asked us if there were any places he needed to fix; we never had a chance to do a walk-through with him to make sure everything was done right. He just left without saying anything to me. We felt that overall, the job is unfinished because there are several places that need to be touched up and fixed. Of course I would NEVER have him come back into our home, so we will have to live with the places that are messed up. I would absolutely NEVER hire Dave again. He does pretty good work, but I do not feel safe with him in my home. He was very disrespectful and needs to learn that he cannot treat people the way he treated me. We hired him to come into our home and to do a job. We expected that we as well as our home would be treated with respect and that's certainly not what happened.