Michel Huard Peintre et Tireur de joints Inc.

I originally hired that business because of its high rating. Since that high rating is misleading, I feel like I need to share my experience so the rating become closer to reality...

The first thing to mention, even though I guess its a common practice... They seem to overbook themselves to not lose contracts. Meaning that a 3-4 days job will be estimated to take 2-3 weeks, just so they can run multiple projects, even without the manpower to do so, just to make sure to not lose any prospect. Not the most upsetting thing, but I thought I'd mention it.

The paint they use is Lifemaster by Dulux. It is eco-friendly but covers poorly. Michel might say they use matte painting but he actually mean eggshell. Again, that was disappointing but not deal breaking, since he told me it was premium paint I was expecting Dulux Diamond, but eh.

The last thing to know before I get into the details of the 1 star review is that you ask Michel a straight question, and he is completely unable to give you a straight answer. He turn around the pot trying to guess what he needs to say to make you happy. This is especially true for pricing; let's be honest, he is the cheapest painter I've ever hired and he was shy to charge a cent more; but damn the resulting work was not worth much either...

Now the work:

* Of the 3 painters that painted our house, some didn't know how to do cutting. Most cutting lines are not straight (house is 3 years old, so its not a problem of crooked walls), baseboards are not painted fully (to not touch the floor), they didn't clean when they went over (and god did they go over everywhere)...
* Before the painters came, I took the initiative to remove all fixtures, all covers on every switch around the house, removed every door handles, etc. They still managed to paint over power outlets, sinks and everything that was closer than 2 inches from whatever they had to paint.
* There was paint drips everywhere on the floor after they were done: usually imply poor rolling technique (on top of not covering/protecting surfaces of course).
* There was very few repairs made before painting and the painters happily painted on top of: hairs, previous plaster work that needed sanding, cracks and basically everything that Michel missed when he did the patching before the painters came. The end result is amateur-looking work.
* The only plastering work done was poorly executed: you can see the plastering line of the wall corner that was fixed.
* They forgot to paint 2 walls + 1 ceiling leading to the basement that were included in the contract (basement was excluded; I assume it was just not clearly communicated).
* Finally, and I just realized that this morning, they forgot to paint the ceiling of the connected area on the 2nd floor... You see they did the cutting, but they forgot to roll it...

We are talking 4,600$ for a paint job that me and my partner consider needs to be redone from scratch. Of course, its livable, and we will revisit rooms 1 at the time in the future... However, we decided to go with a professional painter to paint our new house to have an "all included" experience and move in a freshly painted house. We couldn't be more disappointed with the result.

Note:

Michel did come and fix as much as he could before collecting payment. But we are finding defects left and right weeks after he left. More specifically:

* He fixed baseboard cutting that was going over the walls so it would look straight.
* He added a second coat to a room where Lifemaster failed to cover (light green over pink).