Five Star Painting of Bellevue

We received your Spring Special "Free Paint" advertisement in the mail the other day, which brought back memories of the awful experience we had with 5 Star Painting of Bellevue. We wish we knew back then how your "Free Paint" offer worked before we "took the bait" and had you paint our home. It would have saved us a lot of money and anxiety caused by having to have another paint company come out and clean up the mess you left on our exterior. For anyone who might be considering this "great offer of free paint", think it through completely and read on. Paint is expensive, so how can a painting company legitimately offer you "free paint" for painting your homes exterior or interior? For starters, by skimping on the pre-painting prep work, which is absolutely essential for a quality, long lasting paint job. When 5 Star Painting painted our homes exterior, we found out later that they did a very poor job of prepping the areas for painting, thus saving Tom Sternod and 5 Star Painting of Bellevue, a lot of money on labor costs. We also later found out that that they had only given us one coat of paint instead of the industry standard two coats of paint, even though on the quote sheet Tom Sternod signed and gave us, clearly specified that we were to receive two coats of paint. This cut his costs for purchasing the paint for our home in half, thereby saving him additional money as well. The actual paint product he used on our home is called "Super Paint", (major oxymoron) which we found out is one of, if not THE cheapest (lowest quality?) paint that Sherwin Williams carries, which also helped Tom Sternod and 5 Star Painting of Bellevue save even more money. If your planning on selling your home soon and don't care about the quality or longevity of the paint job you will receive, then Tom Sternod and 5 Star Painting of Bellevue is the painting company for you. The new owners of your home will be none the wiser when the paint job starts breaking down (cracking, peeling, and curling up) shortly after the warranty expires. When they call Mr. Sternod to inquire why their paint job is in such bad shape, they, like us, will be told that "Mr. Sternod is not available to take your call". THE AGE OLD ADAGE "THE BITTERNESS OF POOR QUALITY REMAINS LONG AFTER THE SWEETNESS OF LOW PRICE IS FORGOTTEN" WAS NEVER MORE APPLICABLE THAT AS IT APPLIES TO TOM STERNOD AND 5 STAR PAINTING OF BELLEVUE.

They called promptly to set up an estimate. After I set it up, I got a second call to set up an estimate and told them we already had one set up. Then noone showed up to do the estimate. I called and they said they had no record of it. They did not try to reschedule and all three people I interacted with seemed really slow (maybe their computer systems are slow?). I was really surprised to have this experience after having read all the great reviews! :(

We had Five Star Painting paint the white trim on the exterior of our house, and our front door and one section of siding in 2020. Tom Sternod came out to prepare the bid, and then once again after we'd decided to accept it. I liked the way he communicated with me (without condescension or attitude, just honest and straight-forward) and the bid seemed fair as compared to others. Bette was the foreperson on the job and she was great, answering all our questions, texting before she stopped in. The project was completed in a lucky stretch of 5 days of beautiful dry weather. The crew of 2 did a fine job, hand painting all the trim. I wish the warranty was longer than 2 years. That seems skimpy to me. Otherwise, absolutely no complaints.

Paint used was an off brand lower quality Sherwin Williams (SW) off-brand; less than half the cost of SW Super paint. Contract stated two coats, but clearly only was applied. Had to touch up walls where the old paint color could still be seen (old: Off white, New: Different shade of Off white). Also, I had to go around and spackle missed holes, popped nails and other obvious imperfections missed; then had to touch up all those spots. Tom was a nice guy, but was not part of the painting crew that showed up. Was difficult to communicate with the crew as English was not spoken well. On the plus side, masking job was good. Tom only was present for “the Sell” and to collect the money. The crew left without installing all the wall plates and even left some items still masked. Tom did come back and take care of those issues, however, after we called him. Had a much lower quote from CertaPro painters; should have went with them. I kind of feel like this company took advantage of my 89 year old father. YMMV.

See above. TDS did an incredibly lousy job.