VanDerKolk Painting

Update: Once the hectic times of building settled down a bit, we approached the owner of the company with our concerns. He immediately responded and took the time to stop out and see things for himself. He agreed with our concerns and had a crew out in a matter of days to complete the project. He also agreed to refund the additional amounts that we had been charged over and above the original estimate. We certainly understand that there are likely to be issues/concerns re: a project of this scope. You can tell a lot about a business by the way they respond to such matters. In this respect, we were very impressed with Mr. VanDerKolk and VanDerKolk Painting. We would certainly recommend them to others. ------- We hired VanDerKolk to take over the job of the builder's painter who had done a great deal of damage in the house. VanDerKolk did a great job of resolving the varnish overspray in the bedroom (the builder's painters laid the doors against those walls and sprayed varnish on them without protecting the walls) and cleaning up the primer overspray on the clear wood (also from the previous painter). They were very careful to protect all surfaces in the house and were very courteous. I suspect they would do a great job for a room or two, but I don't think they were prepared to take on an entire house in the building stage. All of our paint colors were deep or dark. Unfortunately they underestimated in several rooms how many coats it would take to cover and so despite the $9000 estimate (for a 1200 sq.ft. home) we had to pay extra to get an extra coat of paint added in the under-estimated rooms. They also charged extra because they had underestimated how much time it would take to caulk trim and fill any drywall dings. The shoe molding in all of the rooms was given a single coat of paint prior to installation and in their final visit to patch nail holes and complete the final coat of paint after the floor was installed I think they very much under-estimated the time it would take to finish the shoe moulding and it looks rushed. The result is a line of blotchy paint along the floor where there is still only one coat of paint. There are also blotchy single-coat areas throughout the house that can be seen from across the room. They were VERY concerned about conserving paint…..maybe too much? They neglected to use the paint color I'd chosen for the ceiling (listed in their instructions from the time they estimated the job) and used their standard ceiling paint instead. In the end I okayed it rather than have them paint it over again, but it was frustrating that they hadn't paid attention to what I'd asked for. Except for one room, all of the rooms had the trim color in the same color as the walls…..again, they didn't pay attention to the instructions and had to repaint the trim in the one room……I was originally told I would need to pay them to change the color but we stood firm. My color selection was the same as it had been when they estimated the job and the color error was their mistake. I had no problem paying for the revision I'd made on the door color, but I didn't feel I should have to pay for their own mistakes and so many of their underestimations. Although they had gone to great pains to patch nail holes in the window framing before varnishing them they left the stairwell to the last minute and none of the nail holes were patched (including a protruding nail and chunk of missing riser). The treads and risers were not sanded between varnish coats and they look pretty awful and drippy in spots. We'll likely need to strip the stairs and start over. One person to do all of the final nail fills, final touch-up, paint all the shoe moulding and complete the stairwell in one day makes for a very rushed job and that was very clear on the stairwell. That said, some areas look fantastic. I've already repainted some of the rooms to fix the coverage issues and to fix some of the uneven edges and I'll likely need to do this to all of the rooms. I think if the final price of the job had been a closer match to the quality of the job I might have had a different opinion, but I feel we paid a premium price and did not receive premium work in many areas.

Very well run business. We have used them many times over the last 4 years preparing our home for sale. The owner does the consultation and his crew does the work with his indirect oversight. Excellent quality and courteous staff. Highly recommend but call well ahead of when you need the job done. The best painters in this area are very busy.