Finishing Touches Design & Renovations

Formerly Finishing Touches Painters
General Contractors
Toronto ON M8Z 3A4
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Veronica
Veronica
1 review Burlington, ON
1/10

Disappointed

I am typically not one to leave reviews, but felt it was necessary to share our experience. I will preface this review with stating up front that Devon was very patient with us, he was very understanding, had great communication, and was always very responsive. However, the paint job we were left with, and the additional mess, was not what you would expect from professional painters.

We have just undergone major renovations. We have dealt with every trade and contractor at this point. While the house is old, and obviously has some imperfections, we have put brand new drywall, ceilings, all trim, baseboards, doors, hinges, and floors throughout. Our expectations were that at least the new items be left with a smooth, even, consistent paint job.

When we met with Devon for a quote, he reassured us that all imperfections on the wall from drywall mud would be sanded, all nail/screw holes on the walls would be patched, and all new trim and baseboard would be caulked and nail holes be filled in. I ensured we got this in writing in an invoice in an effort to get us both on the same page. He also said all floors would be covered and protected to avoid paint drips, as we just put in brand new floors. I was reassured by Devon and all of the positive reviews I read on here, but our experience was completely different.

The crew that showed up consisted of 4+ people, all with clearly different levels of experience. They immediately started to paint with absolutely zero prep work of patching, sanding, masking off spots, or filling nail holes. As our house is quiet large, Devon estimated the job would take 4 days. Every day once the crew would leave, I’d inspect the job and point out issues to Devon the following day. He would reassure me that this isn’t the finished product yet and so I decided to leave my inspection till the end. I would expect Devon to finely inspect and supervise all work, and only bring in skilled professionals, but that was not the case.

Once the job was “done”, we were left with a house that looked like it was painted by beginners. I wish I took pictures of the original “finished” product – paint runs everywhere, lint from the rollers that has dried up in the paint, caulking missed, doors half painted, nail holes not filled in, splotchy paint, our black hinges now completely covered in paint, etc. I was very disappointed, but Devon was very understanding. I marked the spots with green tape and Devon returned with smaller help to touch up the spots.

However, there were so many issues that it wouldn’t be possible to mark them all or the whole house would have to be redone. Even after they came back for touch ups, instead of properly fixing their mess by sanding, patching what is necessary, re-sanding, and re-painting, they simply painted over areas they sanded so you can clearly see gauges underneath the paint. Devon’s helper also seemed like he did not want to be there, so everything he touched seemed to only get worse. I attached pictures of only a fraction of stuff we are left with AFTER the touch ups. And the best part is? The crew got paint all over our new floors and did not clean it. I’ve spent 3 straight days trying to clean my new floors which Devon reassured me would come out with water. However, items that have sunk into the grain do not come out now. Similarly, while the crew tried to scrub our hinges that were once black but are now full of paint, they are still white and splotchy. When hiring professional painters, I would expect them to tape off all hinges and cover all floors so this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. Now we will have to replace all of our hinges out of our own pocket! I am so disappointed in the service we received and the fact that I am now left with a mess of a paint job that I either have to fix myself or pay more money to hire a different painter to fix. Simply unacceptable and discouraging after months of renovations, only to be left with DIY-level of a paint job.

I have included pictures which clearly shows the paint drips, nail holes not filled in, patches not even painted at all, caulking missed or overflowed, and paint splatters on our floor everywhere. In all of these pictures, these were brand new, straight from the factory, pre-primed materials that were installed prior to the painters.

Approximate cost of services:
$7,650.00
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Company Response

Hi Veronica,

We are sorry you had a disappointing experience with us and are not happy with the result. We did have one new painter on the crew and made some mistakes unfortunately.  Thank you for acknowledging the responsiveness and open communication from us.   We did come back several times and addressed the issues and asked that you give us a call if you find anything else.  We hope you give us a chance to resolve the issues in the pictures you posted. We also have a tool we can use to clean the paint from the grooves in the floor and we did offer to replace the hinges that were accidentally painted over at no cost.
For the sake of the review, we wanted to clarify a few points below.  With the new drywall, we prefer to prime the walls first, before any patching and sanding – that is why you saw the crew jump straight into painting. They were in fact priming and all the sanding and patching was done subsequently, as agreed.
There were also areas in the house to be painted that were old and painted previously and had imperfections (not just the new installations). In our quote we included the nail holes, but any major repair or refinishing work would always be extra. One of the pictures you posted contains drips from the old paint job – we mentioned that would be considered a repair. Another picture you have of the baseboard shows an issue with the way the baseboard was cut during the installation – this is not something that can just be made perfect by applying caulking. We did our best to accommodate additional requests and did quite a bit of extra work sanding and patching some of the imperfections from the old drywall or screws that kept showing up after your ceiling installation – at no extra cost. 
We do acknowledge that we missed some spots and made the mistake with the hinges. This is not an experience we want any customer to go through. We hope we can resolve the issues in the pictures you posted and any others you may have come across. 

Sorry that you had to go through this experience. We always do excellent work but somehow we made a few mistakes at your home and for that, I’m sorry. I hope we can resolve the issues in the pictures you posted and any more you may have come across.