I just had Tim and his excellent crew paint the exterior of my large home in San Ramon. They did a great job and plan to use them for some interior painting this winter.
I got four quotes in August 2012 for the project, and Tim was the first one I talked to. He gave four reference houses within a few blocks of my home, including my next door neighbor; the other painters didn't come even close in their professionalism and level of experience. Tim's price quote was around twice the lowest quote, but also only about a third of the most expensive. There was an almost 6:1 ratio between the lowest quote this year and quote I received from a large well known construction company last year. Earlier in the year, one of the "college student" painting companies knocked on my door and gave me a quote, and I'm happy I didn't let inexperienced summer interns learning how to paint work on my house. The Three N Painting crew is at the other end of the experience scale, with decades of experience, and their price quote was almost the same, and very similar to another quote. I felt like I got excellent value, great quality work by a highly experienced and efficient team, at a reasonable price. Was the company that quoted almost three times the price better quality, perhaps their prep on the woodwork was more extensive, but the paint they were going to use was exactly the same. If cost were no object, I might have chosen that company, although having Three N replace all the woodwork might have cost less and been the very best quality. I think the highest bid perhaps had a lot of padding, to cover the worst possible repair scenario. Three N's quote I don't think included this kind of padding, and I made case by case choices what repairs I felt were justified, which I knew would be in addition to the base quote. I felt the lowest bids were from people who either had no real idea how to make an accurate quote, or else unemployed painters who wanted to work at any price.
Not only did they paint the place, his team was able to replace some rotted wood trim, including a piece that looked almost impossible to replace between a patio door and some concrete steps. He even helped me in color selection. They were incredibly efficient, as my large home only took three days, including extensive prep and caulking of wooden trim. The team very clearly had worked out ways to work really efficiently, I almost wish I had taken video.
Tim communicated very well about repair options of rotted wood as the project progressed and we had some very real conversations about what was worthwhile doing and what added only marginally at significant expense. It's refreshing to find a contractor who I can trust. Tim didn't try to sell me anything unneeded, and also didn't just ignore and paint over areas of my home that really did need some repair.
I felt Tim and Three N team were highly experienced professionals, who delivered an excellent exterior paint job at a competitive price. I highly recommend them! read more
