Gene's Painting & Drywall

Gene not only didn't show up on time or at all (sick?), he did a lousy job. Now I see that the what he did do, wasn't primed and the paint is falling off the ceiling in sheets (4 years later!). I fired him half way through the job because he couldn't keep the schedule (always an excuse) and wasn't do a clean job. So mad!

Very capable, great job! On time every day. Very pleasant, helpful and extremely reasonable and on time each day! Very pleased with all work!

He used three helpers. The taper, sander was great at his skill. He taped and sanded to a high degree of quality. The other helpers were unskilled and did tasks that needed correction. Aware of a deadline, Gene had a litany of excuses for not showing up in the first week. In the second week he got sick, so he says, and provided me with one day of service through a sub painter. I then terminated his use.

Genes estimate was less than half of the other estimates we had received for this job. Therefore, we decided to give him the contract. He was very polite, well mannered and showed to work on time. He called before coming each day prior to showing up for work to ensure it was ok for him to come over. He was professional and polite and cleaned up after himself each day, to include placing furniture back in it's original position. I have nothing bad to say about Gene as a person as we talked throughout his time at the house and he was very personable, polite and easy to converse with. The only issue I have is his work quality. He asked for half the payment up front which I did not mind as he needed to purchase materials for the job. Two of the three days he worked, he had 2 different workers who were not licensed and judging by his instructions given, they had little experience in the tasks they were performing in my house. Gene completed the job in the alloted time. However, during the final walkthrough I noticed about 8 areas which needed further attention. He completed the requested tasks, was paid and departed. Hours later when the second coat of paint dried, I started noticing the previous wall color showing through the new paint in all rooms. I then took a detailed look at Genes paint job and found enough problems I decided to take photo's and call him to come fix the problems. He was contacted Friday afternoon and said he would fix the problems but could not do so until sometime the following week (4-5 days later). I advised him I wanted it done sooner so we could get our house put back together and was told he had other jobs and would not be able to until sometime next week. I advised him we would do it ourselves so we could get the house put back to normal. The next day, In good lighting we found large areas of the ceiling which he had not painted (obvious as we had semi-gloss paint being covered by a flatter paint), the 4" area above the cabinets was more yellow than white, numerous areas on the wall adjacent to the island on both ends had hardley been touched as by the highly visible yellow paint. Also, numerous areas on all walls where showing the previous wall color. We had no more paint so we took the can he used to home depot so the paint could be matched. We advised the person at the paint counter of our problem and asked for more of the same paint. We were shocked when we were told "this paint is the wrong type paint unless he put primer on before painting, becaue this paint has no primer in it." Well knowing he didn't prime the walls before painting and the fact I had asked Gene about priming and he said "the Behr paints all have primer mixed in these days" led me to believe he may have been mislead by the can saying "Self-priming" and thought the paint had primer in it. Eitherway, we didn't want to paint it ourselves and ended up repainting it all due to the poor quality job which was done by Gene. Once we got down on our knees to tape things off, we found more areas which were poorly covered and needed to be redone and areas which had not been touched at all. Found paint on molding where areas had not been taped prior to paining, painters tape which had not been removed, etc. etc. I contacted Gene and requested reimbursement for the cost of the paint we had to buy as he would have had to purchase it anyway. After reading the 2 previous comments on here prior to calling him after the job, I didn't want to push my luck and not get any reimbursement back. He did agree to the $120 reimbursement of the paint and promised to bring it by today. I will post a follow-up if it doesn't happen. Lesson learned: You get what you pay for! Check hidden or out of sight areas before rendering final payment. Gene seems like a nice guy, however hind sight 20-20...should have just painted it ourselves...... as we ended up doing it anyway. It took 3 1/2 more gallons of paint and the entire weekend but now it's done the way we want it and looks great. CHECK ANGIESLIST BEFORE HIRING AND ASK FOR REFERANCES BEFORE AWARDING A CONTRACT FOR WORK!!!!

Hes a pile.

Because Gene wanted half down, I had to pay him $1400 and then $200 for his girlfriend assistant. He got my project off schedule and I had to hire a whole crew who sheetrocked ceilings, repaired plaster and textured in 3 days what would have taken Gene a month to do. His work was shoddy, the cracks in the plaster were not repaired and his drywall work was unprofessional. Don't hire Gene unless you have6 months to get your project done. Although as older man with a fairly decent and well-meaning personality, I was very frustrated with his inability to deliver what he promised he could do.