CJ Drywall

During the initial walkthrough Jamie told me straight up that he doesn’t care about reviews or feedback. That he works for a dozen contractors and doesn’t need the work. That he only does jobs like mine to fill a small lull for him. I was impressed with his confidence and experience. I thought I got lucky and found an expert in the field. So I hired Jamie to do some drywall repair throughout my home including fixing a repair job that was botched by someone else. The area that was previously botched the worse was on the kitchen ceiling. Having spent several years in the construction/remodel field(including some drywall), I understand that doing any kind of overhead work is difficult and labor intensive. I made myself clear to Jamie and stated that the most important part of the job for us was the ceiling. I even asked if it was realistic for me to expect him to make it look good. He assured me that he could make it look like the ceiling was never repaired to begin with. Feeling good about his confidence, I agreed to hire him at his rate of $45 an hour plus material cost. Jamie did an almost ok job on the ceiling. It certainly looks better than it was, but is definitely not where it should be given his assurances and confidence, yet alone his rate. When the noticeable flaws were pointed out to him, he stated that it was within the industry tolerance, that he wouldn’t apply any more joint compound or do any more sanding (he had already textured) and that he could apply a little more texture to try to hide the flaws. Given his reluctance to find a way to correctly fix it, I stated that I would just have to fix it myself and get someone else to retexture and walked away to go exercise my dog. At this point Jamie through a hissy fit and refused to finish the rest of the job. He had completed the repairs on the lower level of my home, but still had to sand and texture some repairs on the upper level. I was exercising my dog in the park behind my house about 100 feet away from the front door when I heard Jamie yelling something at my wife. Turns out he had been trash talking the North End(of the sound?). Which is kind of funny, because he had trash talked part of Seattle to us earlier in the week. Not sure what part of the area he actually likes to work in. He had stated that the people there wanted more than they were willing to pay for. His rate is $45 an hour… for drywall… I am not sure how much more people need to pay to get the quality they want. That being said, the wall and corner repairs, that he actually finished, came out flawless. I was quite impressed and pleased with his performance, until I saw the ceiling. He also painted some doors for me. Those came out well. I have not done a thorough inspection on them yet, but they looked great at first glance. Aside from the overspray on my finished garage floor and the fact that he left my brand new forced air electric heater on and in the spray tent he set up, I was pleased with the door painting. After being coated by and sucking in paint mist that coated the internal heating components, I am a little worried about using the heater again. All in all, Jamie is capable of phenomenal work, unless you need ceiling repairs done. His is a joy to have in your home, unless you point out something that he messed up, then he comes up with all kinds if industry bullshit excuses and throws a tantrum. Since he clearly does not need the work and in the end the experience was totally negative, I cannot in good conscience recommend him to a fellow homeowner. He did take 2 hours of labor off the bill for the ceiling. If he had stayed to finish the rest of the work instead of storming off and yelling at my wife while I wasn't around, I would have given him a much better review.