A "Professional" painter RUINED our renovation, now what? Please read....

[Piston]

Thank you to all for the words of advice and encouragement!  I'm really hoping that what happens now, is that Jim was right in what he said and the guy was just trying to 'bluff' his way into making me 'scared' of going to court, and hopefully he'll just drop it, and not really pursue the court route.  Unfortunately, I have a feeling he'll follow through, but we'll wait and see. 

I was going to just sit back and wait to see if I heard from him, or the court, but now I think I'll take your advice and file a complaint with the better business bureau, try to find any licensing (or lack of) information I can, and look into the bonded and insured aspect of his business. 

I wish there was a way to find out who the past customer was who withheld the $3k from him, I'd love to talk to them  :D

[beenthere]

Tell us that you have everything documented now, and with pictures. ??

[Piston]

Tell us that you have everything documented now, and with pictures. ??

My wife took a whole bunch of pictures of every detail of the paint job.  We also have "before" pictures as well.  Most all of her correspondence with him was over email, so that is all saved of course, she wrote down the conversations they had about what was wrong, and what she wanted fixed and was unhappy with.  I also have written down what he said, and assured us of, when he was there for the estimate.  My wife wasn't home during the day when he and his guys were working, so there was limited conversation with them.  Almost everything was over email like I mentioned, so it's really pretty plain and clear what we expected.  In the "email contract" he sent us, which really was just a quote of work to be performed, he stated:

All work to be performed in the house interior.

General Steps:

1- All furnishing and floors will be covered and protect before any works begins.
2- All areas, upon completion will be cleaned-up.
3- All left over paint will be labeled and left for future touch-ups.

Prepare walls, ceiling and woodwork to be painted.

Rooms specifications: Hall, Family Room and Dining Room.

1- Apply one coat of interior latex paint to the ceilings. (Flat Finish)

2- Apply two coats of interior latex paint to the walls (Eggshell Finish)

3- Apply one coat of oil base primer to all previously stained woodwork.

4- Apply two coats of interior latex paint to the woodwork(trim) Semi Gloss Finish.

5- Keep areas clean on a daily basis.

Then in the quote, he stated the price, and terms of payment are 50% down, and 50% upon completion.  I'd rather not say what the prices were so I did not include them in the above copy and pasted quote from his email. 

Did I mention that there is also paint on our carpet in one of the rooms? 

Also, this is straight from his website...

Our results are guaranteed because we pay special attention to the three basic of any paint or finishing job: Surface preparation, paint application and high quality paints and materials.

[Piston]

Piston,
The best solution may be to take to take all your paperwork and photos to the contractors state license board and begin with a consultation with one of the state license agents, he will inform you of the proper methods and your options as to handle this contractor and assist you with the correct forms and paperwork.

I googled MA state license board, and came up with the Division of Professional Licensure.  There is a "search" option but it only lists a limited amount of "professions" to search under, and I can't find anything to do with painting? 

Any ideas on what a painting contractor may be listed under?
http://license.reg.state.ma.us/public/licque.asp?query=business&color=blue&board=

[Holmes]

 Painters do not require a license in Ma..  But there are lead paint laws that must be followed for work on houses built before 1980.

[beenthere]

Lead paint?  Thus a potential reason there was no scraping or sanding done.

[Fla._Deadheader]

Still could have used "liquid sandpaper". It does a good job as a base for primers.

[Piston]

Lead paint?  Thus a potential reason there was no scraping or sanding done.

No lead paint, it was either varnished, or it was painted before we bought the house, but after lead paint was "outlawed"

[rbhunter]

I would also let the Paint dealer who recommended him know and show him pictures. He may have never seen his work.

[Peter Drouin]

That's too bad piston. All ways use an old customer for a reference. Not a salesman.good luck out of this

[giant splinter]

Piston,
Holmes is correct about no painters contracting license required in Ma.
They do have a home improvement contractors requirement that he falls under and you might check that out the text below is from the Ma. state website under contractors license requirements. He may be registered with this license.


Home Improvement Contractor's Licenses

If you work on existing residential structures that are one- to four-unit owner-occupied buildings, you also need to register with the state. To do this, contact the State Board of Building Regulations and Standards and ask for an application to register as a Home Improvement Contractor or Subcontractor. There's no exam connected with this registration.

[Corley5]

I'd be looking into suing him for the damage he caused.

[Piston]

I checked again on the Mass.gov website to see if he is registered, but I'm not having too much luck.  There is a phone number listed so I'll call that on Monday when they open and see what I can find.    You guys have certainly proved helpful 

Corley, I thought about that, and if he does take me to court then I'll probably pursue it, but if not, I'll just let bygones be bygones and deal with the work myself.  I am however, going to get 2 or 3 quotes from painters to fix his mistakes, just in case....Although I really don't want it to come to that. 





In the meantime, I've been thinking of the best way to fix this mess.  Tell me if there is anything wrong with this idea....
Sand down all the trim back to bare wood, so I will remove all the paint, all the varnish, and a thin layer of old wood to expose some of the fresh wood, making it look almost new again (hopefully).  I figure I could use a combination of random orbital sander, small triangle detail sander (what's the name for these?) and good ole fashion elbow grease for the parts I can't reach.
Then I'll be back to square one, I can tape the areas off, and apply my first coat of primer.  Then let dry, and put a coat of top coat on.  Then, if there are any inconsistencies or brush strokes, go over everything again with a fine grit sandpaper, maybe 240 or so?  to smooth out the first coat of paint.  Then I'll be ready for my second (hopefully final) coat. 

Would you guys recommend all latex based primer, or oil based on the wood?  I want to make sure I get all the old varnish off because it was already in tough shape, and it will only chip more in the future unless I remove it all. 



Here are a few more pictures my wife emailed me.  We have a built in hutch in the dining room, where we keep all our china, some wine glasses, and some liquor bottles.  These pictures are of the 'inside' of the hutch.   

In the above pic, you can see the poor coverage of the spray job.  To the right in the picture, is the wooden frame going down the center of the hutch, you can see where he missed behind that wood frame member. 



You can also see where he painted the metal shelf hangers, which I did not want painted.  In this picture you can see the very spotty coverage, some places it's too thick, some too thin.  Not uniform at all. 



I guess he thought we would never want to adjust the height of the shelves ever again, as he didn't worry about painting behind them  :D


This is his finish "cut in" job.  So nice and flush against the trim.  He must have taken a lot of time getting such a pretty finish with this.    :D


This will also have to be completely sanded down, that is NOT going to be fun  >:(

[beenthere]

Sand down all the trim back to bare wood, so I will remove all the paint, all the varnish, and a thin layer of old wood to expose some of the fresh wood, making it look almost new again (hopefully).  I figure I could use a combination of random orbital sander, small triangle detail sander (what's the name for these?) and good ole fashion elbow grease for the parts I can't reach.

I'd suggest you go behind a door in one room and do just that. You will find out what is involved, how much work it is, and have a much better idea why the painter didn't do just that for the money he quoted. Also, will have a better idea what would have been in store for you if you had not hired the painter.

I think at this point, I'd just go over the obvious missed spots (of which there appear to be many) and cover them up with more paint. Then go and enjoy it for a while until you can work at it a bit at a time, maybe room by room.

[Peter Drouin]

I would not sand it all out, just paint it over where you have to. Or rip out the wood trim and put up new wood, you do own a WM don't you

[bill m]

I didn't think you could buy oil based paint in Mass. any more.

[thecfarm]

Bill,MA is getting as bad as CA,  :  But for all I know oil base paint is not in Maine either.

[tyb525]

I would not go to the trouble of sanding the paint either, I've done many paint jobs with my boss just wiping the old paint down before painting and it looks just as good as new, just sand drips, etc., that might show through.

Also, side note, I would never use a contractor recommended by a big box store...I've seen too many horrific jobs done by those guys...

[Yoopersaw]

I'd just get an attorney and screw small claims court.  Sue the painter and the sooner you do it the better.

[beenthere]

yoopersaw
Has that worked for you in the past?

[Piston]

I'm gonna hold off on pursuing a law suit against him.  It's not the money I'm real concerned with, it's the time and effort, or rather, the effort and LACK of time that I have  :D

I am definitely going to have to sand quite a bit, maybe not down to bare wood, but there are parts of the varnish that are chipping off, so if I just "wipe" down over the current paint and varnish, it's just going to chip in the future. 

Peter,
I was thinking that maybe I would just mill all new trim on the sawmill.  I just don't know if the wife is gonna let me wait that long for it all to dry.   :D 

Bill,
I don't know if you can get oil based paint in MA anymore either.  I would stick with the latex paint for the top coats, but I'm wondering if oil based primer would be better to prime the wood, which I'm sure I can still get.  Although, after thinking about it, if I'm going to be sanding down the trim to bare wood, then I can just use the latex based primer anyways. 

Either way, this is sounding more and more like it will be a better "winter" project for me rather than waste the nice days of summer working inside the house.   ;D 

[drobertson]

Piston, it almost looks like you could pull and replace quicker, cheaper, and easier than re-doing that, not sure, sorry bout that mess you have, a killer for sure,,  david