Central Vermont Painting

Keith Roya, owner of Central Vermont Painting is someone to avoid at all costs. He will not return my deposit after doing no work, not communicating, and delaying the start date 5 times. I am taking legal steps.

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Having used Central Vermont Painting previously for an outside job the summer before, and having been very happy with the work, we wanted to use them again for this inside job. When they were here for the outside job before, we had asked Keith if he did inside work and got a rough estimate, which he gave as $500-550. We had him come back on Saturday March 22nd to provide a formal quote, and to include taking down the popcorn ceiling in the bedroom hallway. The quote he provided was $750, which we felt was reasonable. He said that the work could begin the following Monday (March 24th) and would probably be done by end of the day on Wednesday. We agreed that he could begin work on Monday morning, and could show up any time after 8 a.m. and he thought it might be about 9:30. He showed up at about 10:30. They thought the wallpaper would be down that day and the ceiling could go into Tuesday and they could start painting on Tuesday. They went to get supplies and I went to work. Coming home on Monday night, some of the wallpaper was down, but still clearly glue on the walls and ceiling not touched. Tuesday night my wife comes home from work (I was traveling for work) to find the ceiling down, but no other prep completed and no paint on the walls at all. No note was left so I had to call Keith to know what was going on. This is a real pet peeve of mine - if something changes, fine, but at least communicate with me so I know what is going on. Turns out that only Keith's brother did some work that day and that Keith had to dig his old truck out of the snow so that he could sell it. Fine, got it - things happen, but again, not necessarily my issue or a major concern if something else comes up, but just let me know what is going on. Wednesday night comes around - this time a note awaits us at home, saying that things are taking a little longer than anticipated and that because of the extra work, the cost is going to be a "little bit higher." That is the quote - a "little higher." No specifics, but to me, a "little" means 10%, maybe 20% higher. More to come on that. At this point, there was still no paint on the walls and clearly not gong to finish on Thursday either, unless they work their tails off. Thursday - another day of relatively small progress (Some paint in foyer but none in hallway, ceiling mudded) and another note, now saying that they will need to come on Friday but will finish it up on Friday. My schedule allowed me to work from home that Friday and my wife typically has Fridays off, so we were there when they showed up at around 10:30. While we had no specific time for them to show up, considering that we were already two days behind the original timing, you'd think they would show up a little earlier. After about six hours of work, they were still not done and said they needed to come back on Saturday. We agreed that they could come back on Saturday and we told them any time after 9:30 a.m. At 9:55 a.m., we left the house to run errands and they were still not there. When we got home at about 3:30 that afternoon, they were still not done. By a little bit later it was clear that they weren't going to finish on Saturday either, and they asked to come back on Sunday, "for just about an hour or so" and we agreed that they could start at 10 a.m. On Sunday, Keith showed up at 11:30 a.m., and ended up working until about 2:30 p.m. - three hours instead of the promised one. Once things were pretty much wrapped up, we got around to the bill. At this point, I see a bill written up for $1285. That is a 70% increase over the original quote, way more than a "little bit more" that was mentioned in his note from Wednesday. Keith proceeded ot make a big deal about how it should be closer to $1500, but he was trying to "do the right thing." We had to have a discussion about punctuallity, timing, proper quoting, proper communication and exactly what a "little bit more" means. In the end, we settled on $1135, but unhappily on my end. I feel that the final pricing that he wanted to charge was way out of line, especially since we never changed the scope of the project work from the original estimate, and the additional work involved some work taping some settling cracks in the wall and some extra layers of plaster on the ceiling to smooth it out. The work does look good, though they were a bit messy - we did a lot of clean up of dust and plaster everywhere - and I had to point out a rather large pile of plaster dust that was hiding a three inch high corner near our front door behind a radiator (but clearly visible) that turned out to be unpainted behind the plaster pile. The edges along our crown molding are about as good as an almost identical effort we did a few years ago, which is fine, but we're amateurs and they are supposed to be pros. The work that Central Vermont Painting is doing is work that we could have done ourselves, but we wanted them to do it so that it would be faster, better and cleaner than we could do it ourselves. They pretty much failed on all fronts - the only upside is that we didn't have to do the work ourselves. So $1285 (talked down to $1135) instead of the originally agreed upon $750 and seven days to do the work instead of the originally estimated three, resulting in a very nice looking if not exceptional looking job that required a lot of clean up after they left. I would recommend Vermont Central Painting for an exterior job but based on this experience, not an interior one.

After pricing out five various local painting companies, Central Vermont was the most reasonable. I checked a reference that he gave us from our neighborhood, and the reference gave high praise. Keith was patient with me, as I started the process just before starting a lot of business travel and didn't make up my mind until a month after our initial conversation, but did the job within a week of me giving the approval on the quote. He provided a written quote and a reference. The power washing was done on a Friday, and they did a very nice, getting all the mildew and green mold off the siding. The siding looked brand new! The following Monday, Keith and his brother (Kyle? it is another name that starts with K) showed up to do the trim painting. I got home just as they were finishing. They were hoping to do it on Monday and/or Tuesday but got it all done in one day on Monday. The trim looks great - very nicely painted and well taken care of. The job was very neat - considering that so much of the paint was flaking, the few tiny little specks of paint chips that I found here are perfectly acceptable. They finished up the job and made sure everything was clean. Keith said that if we see anything we don't like in the sun (it was an overcast day and we are in the middle of a multi-week stretch of rainy weather), give him a call and they will come back out and touch it up. He handed me the remaining bit of paint that was left to hold onto. I was so happy with the job that I invited him in to give a quote on peeling wallpaper and painting inside the house, and the quote seems very reasonable and we look forward to having him do that as well. Overall, he was prompt, patient, conscientious, and did quality work.

I chose this company because of their responsiveness- they called me back, checked to make sure i got the quote, asked if i had questions, etc. i liked that so i hired them. they began on time and everything was going well until i guess they blew a fuse inside the house. instead of calling me to come open the house (it's a duplex rental, so i don't live there) they 'broke in' by busting through the basement door. On top of this they didn't tell me- i stopped by the house to check on their progress and no one was there but the basement door was wide open. They said they would fix the door and make it just like it was before they broke it. As the job progressed, it was obvious that the door was not going to get fixed properly, in addition to some other things. they were supposed to take out some rotted wood deck posts and replace them with pressure treated pieces. they did that, but didn't actually attach the posts to the deck so when i went to the house a couple of weeks later to replace the deck railing, i was surprised when the posts, with very little force, seperated from the deck. Needless to say, i spent over four hours one saturday fixing the basement door so that it might come close to the way it was before. If i had had the Central VT paint do it i fear i would still be without a proper basement door 6 months on.