Sterling Painters

I've left a little time since the job (March/April) to reflect on the experience and try and provide as balance and fair review as possible. Context of the job was a full house paint of a large 4 bed home (including wood trim in top 2 levels of house, basement concrete flooring paint and front door) prior to a home sale.

P.S Per comment from Business - the below review is not mine, nor related to me. This is entirely separate.

The good:

- The price was reasonable enough for such a big job compared to other quotes (middle of the road in context of other quotes we received).

- Christine is really personal and easy to reach. She returns calls, is friendly and very pleasant and I think genuinely wants to please her customers. She was keen to ensure we were happy (more on this below…). On a walkthrough of the job to provide a quote she took notes and measurements of everything (some companies we contacted did not).

- There were delays outside of their control (and ours) and they kept me informed of timelines to address the outstanding work

- We added on further work after they had started and they were able to accommodate our requests. I understand it can be frustrating when the work scope changes but they were very accommodating.

- Christine offered guidance on colours and we were very happy with the end colour, despite having some initial reservations about it.

- We had a minor water tank leak during the painting process when we were not at the property. The painters informed me immediately as well as monitored the issue, for which we were very grateful.

The negative:
- The end result was just – OK. Most of the work was acceptable, but some was just not good. We had a French door painted – while it WAS fully explained to us this was a complicated paint (involving painting around lots of panels of glass) I would guess they did this sloppily and did not fully tape the door the way they should have to professionally paint it. Paint ended up on the glass in places and it did not look neat. It was also chipped at the bottom. There were other instances elsewhere where it is clear they did not tape correctly or fully.

-Generally it is my belief that they vastly underestimated the required time or manpower for the job (and it was a big job!) and as such worked quickly to compensate which led to a lack of quality in some areas. We made a pretty long list of touch ups after they had finished which they willingly came back to address, but even after working through that list that there were still some quality issues. We were working on timelines with our realtor and ultimately signed off on the work, but I would say overall it was not done to the standard that we (or our realtor) expected.

- We had done some painting ourselves prior to beginning the job and as such asked for those specific rooms to be left as they were. Although Christine was clear there was a breakdown in communication with her team and these rooms were painted regardless. This probably was a positive to us (as made the house look more uniform – we were just trying to save a few $$ on rooms that weren’t a necessity) and we weren’t hugely concerned about it with that in mind, but is alarming and suggests communication issues. An apology was given for this.

-The work took a little longer than originally quoted. Although some of this was our doing (as we added work to the scope) and some as mentioned before was outside their control, the base work that was quoted took longer than anticipated.

- We were not consulted about additional costs. We were informed more paint was needed to sufficiently paint the trim but were not consulted on whether we wanted to proceed knowing there would be an additional cost – it was just done. We expressed in writing at the time our objections to this approach and agreed to pay but I object to the principle of the way this was handled. We received a verbal apology for this.

- Some of the paint began to chip and flake away after a few weeks, especially on the trim (which they had purchased more paint for to fully provide comprehensive coverage). Considering the house was vacant this is worrying.

- My details were passed on, without my consent, to at least one additional customer (who called me..!) asking for a referral on the services. It is unacceptable to pass on my details without my permission and we expressed this to Christine.

All this to say – we have mixed feelings about this company. I still do believe Christine to be honest and professional but think there is a communication issue between her and her team and I think they have some quality issues to work on. As you can see most of our issues relate to the work itself and not the ‘business’ side of the arrangement (even when the additional paint and cost issue occurred, I understand this was not Christine who decided to take this approach but her painting team).

I would recommend with a "but you should know....".