Juan Vera - Journeyman Painter review: Bad Paint Job, Poor Work Ethic

I used Juan Vera to paint my house because he was reasonably priced, had good references, and is a Journeyman painter. I thought his estimate was a little lower than other painters because he wanted to branch out on his own after getting his certification. The real reason Juan Vera estimate is lower is because HE SKIMPS ON THE PAINT. He uses as little paint as he can, so that he can take the rest of it home to use on other projects. For example, he told me that it would take about 2 gallons to paint my trims. He actually used half a gallon. He was going to take the leftover with him even though the paint was included in his pricing. When I asked him what he was going to do with my custom color paint, he said he knows how to mix paint colors. I have never heard of a painter taking unused portion of the paint with them. They usually leave it with the home owner for future use.

Not only did he skimp on the paint, Juan Vera has no pride in his work. When he was "done" painting, there were almost 100 area where you can see the old paint. Some of them pretty large areas. He was not happy to have to fix his bad workmanship. He complained that he had to go over the house 3 times to fix his work. I followed him on the last round to show him the areas that was not painted. After he left, there were still areas where the old paint was visible.

Before I hired him, he said he works with another person. When he was on the job, it was only himself. He also told me that he would back roll the paint after spraying. The only material he had on-site were a 3 inch roller for the trims, 1 paint brush, a sprayer, tape and plastic to cover the windows, a few cardboard, a ladder, and paint.

I asked him several times, if he back rolled and he said he did, but I did not see any rollers at the property on the day he spray painted the house. Nobody at the property saw Juan back roll the paint. There are several area where you can see streaks of paint from the sprayer.

In addition, he did not bother to clean up after he "finished" the job. He even got paint from his last job that was left inside his sprayer onto my concrete walkway. He rushed to finish painting my house even though he had one pending job which was schedule to start 2 weeks later.

Juan Vera advertises on Craigslist on the Monterey County and Bay Area sites as a State Certified Journeyman Painter. I would not waste my money on this guy again. He has terrible work ethics and you will feel cheated if you hire him. In my opinion, he is only interested in getting the paint job to get paid. He is not interested in doing the job properly as one would expect from a Journeyman painter.