CertaPro Painters of Bothell

After renting out our home for the past five years I was sure I’d need to have some painting done inside to get it ready for my family to move back. And I was right. The day I got possession of the house I walked through and was horrified and what the tenants had done. In my son’s bedroom they seemingly used one coat of stark white primer to (badly and barely) cover the light tan original color and painted all the trim and doors gloss white. Eeeeew. CertaPro sent Benjamin over to give us an estimate. It was about what I expected and judging from the Unilocal reviews I didn’t both getting any other bids. The crew that arrived to paint, turned out to be one guy, but he was a awesome. I loved the results and would recommend CertaPro to anyone needing interior painting.

We choose CertaPro painters to paint our house because all of the bids were fairly similar and we liked the fact that CertaPro offered a free color consultation. We had our color consultation with Anya and she was great. She asked us some questions and then gave us a limited amount of suggestions then we worked through those to get to our top choices and we even painted samples and looked at them over a few days before we selected. The crew lead by Freddie was great, they were very conscientious and wanted us to be happy with there work. And they had very good suggestions on what would look best in a couple of spots as far as trim versus body color, etc
We’re very happy with the results and will certainly call CertaPro in the future for any painting needs.

Good morning Jeff and Stephanie,
We got home late and really couldn’t see much in the dark. This morning we walked all around our house and just loved what you had done.
Having the house painted while gone was a bit scary but waking up to such a beautiful house has made us very happy and glad that we chose you and your team to do our painting.
The colors and your workmanship have surpassed our expectations. It’s really like a dream come true. The silky cocoa look of the body and the deep chocolate brown of the trim look so rich together.
Our trip to New England to visit family was fun, emotional and at times, difficult. Leaving our home in your hands was the best thing to have happened in the last month.
Thank you so very much.

Where do I start. First off we were repeat customers. CertaPro painted the exterior of house in 2013. Beautifully done. When we were ready for the interior this year, 2014, we went with the logical choice. What a difference a year makes. This was the most unprofessional contract work we have ever had done. We have lived in this house 30 years so we’ve seen our share of workers. The review posted by Rebecca K. is a complete 180 compared to our experience. Sam was our painter also and I’ve never encountered anything like him. Absolutely no prep work. I MEAN NONE! We had to go around and point out every hole, ding in the walls for him to caulk. When he was done there was paint everywhere. All over our window frames, drips on newly installed French doors (not to be painted by them), paint on baseboards. Then to top it off, we had floor installers in this week and as they were moving our entertainment center out we found paint spatter all over the back of our TV and cabinet top. I would recommend Rebecca to REALLY look over her house. The job was to be a 3 day job, so we were told. On the second afternoon Sam was running around trying to get a slap shot job done. I’m sure he had other «fish to fry». He did not want to come back. We were having to point every little thing out. Can you get the paint off our baseboards? How about the paint on our backsplash? You missed an entire area under our breakfast bar. There are still spots that need caulking. We had to ask him to finally leave after 7:00 pm. Our words were «YOU HAVE TO COME BACK!!! Perhaps if he didn’t spend so much time smoking and checking his phone out in his truck things could get done in a timely fashion. We ended up having additional problems with our baseboards that in our contract needed to be completed. Prepping the baseboard BEFORE painting would have eliminated a return trip. What did I say about prepping? Jeff was agreeable to do that. When Sam showed up he refused to do it. That’s the only way to sum it up. He and his buddy walked around a got more paint off the baseboards, and did do SOME caulking but not specifically what we had agreed on. I had to get on the phone with Jeff. I go to find Sam, Guess where he his? Out in his truck smoking and checking his phone. I had to implore him to get back to work. I pleaded with Jeff for him or someone in charge to come out and see what we were dealing with. I had Jeff yelling at me on the phone. I was done. My husband called him and then again we had a agreement. I thought we had one before. I go outside and do some yard work. I go to the yard waste and Sam’s truck is gone. OMG he walked out. Who does this?!! UNPROFESSIONAL!!! I go to the house to call my husband and the phone is already ringing. It’s Jeff saying that Sam told him that I wouldn’t let him leave the house for supplies!!! I’m like what are you talking about? It leaves me speechless. Now the husband is so mad he calls Jeff back. By the way this is all going on while he’s at work. Nice! I get another call from Jeff, «You know, we’re going to get back to our superior customer service and send out another crew. I asked for that before, but they wouldn’t do that. «We have to have Sam finish the job we paid him for». I find the other review on this site very reliable (Danny C). It totally makes sense. By the way on our first problems with Sam (day #2) Jeff informed me that he is actually not a painter. He is contractor who builds houses. I’m like WHAT! PLEASE BE VERY CAUTIOUS! This is what happened to us and we were repeat customers. We have given this company almost $ 9000. If we didn’t get white glove treatment, what can you expect?

I’m on the HOA board of a subdivision that used CertaPro of Bothell/​Lynnwood to paint the exteriors of several homes. We were not made aware beforehand that this particular CertaPro franchise subs out all of their work. From chatting with some of the painters doing the project in our subsivision and from researching online I eventually learned that CertaPro typically pays their subs less than half of the job price, but the subs have to buy the paint and materials and cover their own operating expenses. I was shocked to discover how little the subs were actually making in relation to what was being charged to paint the homes. One result of this business model is inconsistency of quality: while some crews were conscientious and clearly tried to do good work, others cut corners in order to complete their jobs as quickly and cheaply as possible. I had the opportunity to watch multiple crews work in our subdivision and most of them were hustling to get through each house quickly, sometimes doing very unsafe things in the process. The paint job on my own house was initially very poorly done. Sloppy, uneven, thin, slapdash. Someone who knows housepainting well and looked at the job indicated to me that it was indicative of someone in a hurry and not very skilled and that the paint may have been watered down. When I saw the results I refused to pay until it was corrected. The crew foreman told me I was «wrong in the head» to expect quality from «a cheap job» (which wasn’t «cheap» at all for me). Getting things corrected dragged on for 6 weeks until most of the many fixes required were done and I concluded that it was as good as it was going to get and released payment. Poor communication from the CertaPro business owner and language differences with the painters added considerably to the challenges of getting the job done right and in a timely fashion. When it is all said and done I paid for what I consider to be a mediocre paint job and experienced a lot of hassle and I’m dubious about how it is going to hold up over time. I also feel bad that I unknowingly participated in what seems to be a business model that exploits laborers. I would not use CertaPro again nor recommend them.