CertaPro Painters of Southeastern Massachusetts

A total — and very long — nightmare. A number of missteps led to extremely unsatisfactory results. We had two jobs to fulfill: First was industrial epoxy floor covering to finish a cement floor for an interior space that had been carpeted, and second, sanding and staining a large deck.
Here are just a few of the problems: 1. The bidder job was never on site with the crew who would do the work. Crew arrived with misunderstandings about the scope of the job. 2. According to the painter, the bidder creates the bids on the basis of square footage, overlooking particular issues for prep work. 3. The painters were sloppy and seemed inexperienced. 4. They did not tape the surrounding baseboard, and left dark brown brush marks on the light tan baseboard. 5. They did not prepare the surface prior to applying product and rough areas protruded through the «finish.» I was unwilling to accept the work as complete. 6. Of a 2-​person crew — one did not speak English and the «head» spoke only broken Spanish — they had a hard time communicating.
The staining job was worse than amateur. I believe I would have achieved a better result myself — with no prior experience. The ‘painter’ referred to what he was doing in the stain application as «painting.» Perhaps this explains part of the problem with the result — the stain was applied like paint, with many areas of overlap that show as opaque while others are semi-​transparent. I explicitly talked with the painter about wanting the grain to show through and we had samples of two colors in which the effect was the semi-​transparent look that I wanted. We selected one together. The finished work in no way resembled what we agreed on with the sample. The work was sloppy and, frankly, an embarrassment.
After weeks of wrangling over the repairs and the company’s wish to «make it right,» I found that they couldn’t tell me when the corrections would be made because I was on a list of people who also needed ‘re-​do’ work. Finally, they left the mess and returned to me the deposit. The deck had to be a more opaque finish than I’d hoped because of the damage done and I ultimately had to re-​carpet the floor that I’d planned to use as a gym with an epoxy finish.
My worst experience ever with a contractor!!!

Matt from Certa was very friendly and helpful, and their crew was FAST. We made a poor decision on our color initially, and Matt gave us a GREAT price on a do-​over. The house was a new color the next day. Paint job on our cape came out great, recommended!