Squared Away Home Enhancement LLC

Failed to start the job in a timely manner; however, my check in the amount of $1,100 cleared the bank in 2 days but the work did not start until 8 days later. I paid in good faith but he did not honor his own contract to get the work completed by 10 May. Fence and deck were painted an awful color that I did not approve and he did not even bother to repair the fence boards that I specifically pointed out needed to be repaired. Also, there are now paint stains on my siding because he did not cover before spraying/painting the deck. Painted my front steps without scrapping away all the old chipped paint and promised to paint the steps twice but painted the steps once; however, he swore he painted them twice and went on to say that he had painted the steps the day before but I informed him that he did not since I was at home all day. Failed to purchase the correct color paint for the outside trim, although I showed him the HOA paperwork stating the mandatory color for each townhouse in the neighborhood and stated that since he could not get in touch with me, he decided to go with Almond Biege which is almost the same as White but yet the correct color is Almond. By the way, I just had my townhouse re-painted to be in compliance with the HOA requirements which cost me $933.25 (CertaPro Painters) and this included the power washing (and CertaPro used cleaning additives without me asking for additives) of my townhouse. Since he failed to clean my house properly and he stated that since I did not tell him to add the cleaning solution (which would have cost me extra), he only used my water (and my hose) without adding the cleaning solution, I had to pay another contractor. By the way, he even cut-off portions of my tall tree without getting my permission and stated that the tree was blocking him from power washing my house. Yet, in the past my townhouse had been power washed and no one ever cut away my tree. None of my doors or shutters were painted and he even tried to convince me that my shutters did not need to be painted and if they were, they would be extra. Also, when I asked as to when he would be power washing my house, he stated that he had already done so (there was a wasp nest at the very top of my roof and was still there when I asked the question). So, I informed him that my neighbor had noticed the wasp nest still being there and this is when he informed me that he sub-contracted the job because he weighed 350 lbs and his ladder could only hold 300 lbs. One last thing, in his contract he asked for $250 for supplies and that if there were any additional costs associated with supplies, the cost would not go past 10%. So, he hands me a bill for an additional $200+ for supplies because he stated my deck and fence just sucked up the paint! He even broke my house numbers off and asked me to purchase a new set...CertaPro carefully removed the new set without breaking any of the numbers. This whole experience left me in tears because he still insisted on my paying him (which I did in the amount of $800). I told him that I did not appreciate him taking advantage of my kindness. I explained that his work was not at the professional level that he had promised and went on to tell him that I did not think that I should have to pay him for a job not completed at my satisfaction. Rather than him walking away, he proceeded to explain to me as to why he should get paid because it was not his fault that I did not tell him to add the additive to the water; I did not tell him not to cut back my tree (which he never asked); I did not answer the phone to tell him again what the color was to be used to paint my trim, doors and shutters (although he wrote down the colors as he put together the work order but lost the slip of paper he wrote down the colors on); the steps were painted but applied only one coat because of all the rain; and that he thought he had done a pretty good job. All in all, I never want to do business with this man again. I can say that Certa Pro Painters gave me back my house and my hope in contractors.

I did not notice that there was a water leak issue in the finished basement until the damage was visable noticable on the back wall. Anthony (the owner) came and inspected the wall and surrounding area to see if he could tell where the water was coming in from (this turned out to be another issue all together). Anthony was able to fit me in his schedule within a week. It took about 3 days to finish the project but only because the drywall did not dry evenly and so Anthony did a third coat becuase he wanted it to be flawless. He removed the water damaged drywell and baseboard and discovered that there was basically nothing between the drywall and the siding on the house! (Discovered later that the house had a fireplace option downstairs that the previous owner must have taken out and had not repair the back wall properly). So he installed insulation prior to patching up the wall. Then he sanded and painted the wall. It looks like abrand new wall and you can't tell that there was a big chunk of the drywall taken out. The only "bad" thing was when he used his vacuum to clean up it sent dust everywhere. He ended up having to use my vacuum, which was a pain to clean afterward but otherwise he did an outstanding job! In fact I ended up calling him again for the water leak problem and he came up with a very inexpensive solution that seems to have fixed it! Others had quoted me $1000s of dollars to fix. A+ for Anthony! He is very professional, prompt and takes pride in his work! Thanks!