All Day Painters

**warning** This place images as a legitimate business with its own staff, but in reality, it just contracts out to groups of good-​enough, but non-​professional painters, many of whom do not speak enough English for customers to clearly communicate how the job should be done (i.e. what colors and types of paints go in each room, for the trim, etc. etc.).
If it were up to me, I would give this company the dreaded 1-​star. My husband is over my shoulder though, and he is a kinder soul than I am. He says we should give two stars for our experience because they did paint a few of the rooms well. Bless his heart…
That being said — here’s the skinny:
I found All Day Painters online. It had great glossy web pic, a nice website, and promised (falsely) that all painters would have all supplies, arrived uniformed, and be licensed. Rates are $ 675 a day.
Travis (the only guy who answers the number) spoke with us several times, promising that each painter could paint roughly 375 sq. ft. Given that fact and that we hired five painters, the one day he quoted for the job was MORE than enough since our space was at least 300 sq. ft. smaller than the max each guy could do collectively.
When they got here though, they estimated that the job would take longer. The painters didn’t seem like they were trying to scam us to get more hours, but were serious that they thought it would take longer than a day. Had that been the case, we would have planned accordingly. After all, it wasn’t an issue of money. We had that budgeted from our wedding money. It was a matter of principle. My husband called Travis and immediately after greeting him, Travis cut him off asking him if we wanted to «pull the guys from the job or what?!» My husband, taken aback, tried to explain that he was just calling for clarification and not really even to complain, but Travis went on a mile a minute, raising his voice and not letting my husband get a word in edgewise. I could hear him on the other end and I wasn’t even on the phone! I was so proud of my husband for not yelling over him or cursing him out (told you he is a better soul than I am — I would have tracked that sucker down and cussed him out in person). Instead, he tried to communicate what the painters were telling him on site and what Travis quoted us time and time again over the last MONTH that we spoke with him about our paint job.
Instead of just hearing us out, Travis made it worse by not even attempting to listen. As customers, being HEARD is the big thing and, if you are in the business OF business, then you have to be able to communicate without getting (unncessarily) defensive. We hadn’t even told him there was a problem yet (apparently one of the contractors called to give Travis a heads up that there was a concern that the job would take two days instead of the one that Travis promise. I totally get that, but let us at least convey to you what the issue is).
Anyway, since we were almost in a hostage situation, we hung up with him and let the workers continue — for two days. We had specialty metallic paint in two of the rooms that needed to be applied as the directions entailed in order for it to look right. However, the painters did not follow these directions and the edges of both rooms look a MESS! So much so that we have to hire ANOTHER PAINTER to come in and fix both rooms! The rest of the rooms are passable, but the trims aren’t tight and they didn’t paint behind the stove in the kitchen properly or the refrigerator. I know appliances will always be there, but what about when we sell and show the house? We’ll have to fix that too. They did do a great job with the main area, which spans two floors. I will give them that, but since we literally got every house in our home painted and only the main area is without flaw, I would say that it was a waste. We purposely hired professionals because we wanted the job done right. We knew we could do it ourselves, but we wanted better than our novice hand. What we got was WORSE!
I feel like it is my fault for finding these people online and referring them to my husband. I figured since they are based out of McLean, they were not some fly-​by-​night national company. However, in the end, they treated us just like that. Yes — the price advertised is great, but there’s a lot of information they don’t convey (that 375 sq.ft. per painter production quote we had to call for) and again, the painters, although nice and efficient, were not the professional, uniformed painters promised, nor were they truly professional painters. It’s disheartening to have to hire someone else to fix their mistakes, but that is just what we had to do. DO NOT GO WITH THIS COMPANY!!!