Carnival Custom Painting

In June, I hired Carnival Custom Painting to repaint the exterior trim of my home. After getting 3 bids from local vendors, Carnival seemed to be the most responsible vendor—they showed up on time for the estimate, presented a prompt estimate, and appeared on the day and time to do the work. Carnival, like most vendors, use independent crews and pay them by the job. The preparation and painting went well with one exception: the cleanup! I handed the crew leader a broom, dust pan, and bucket to clean up their debris on front and back patios. Then, I spotted one crew member washing his painting tools over the river rock covering my heritage live oak tree! I put a stop to their cleanup mess over my landscape and demanded they clean up their brushes and tools elsewhere. Two weeks later, several dead patches of St. Augustine turf emerged in the cleanup zone. On close inspection, I found matted clumps of exterior house paint in the dead turf. Turf was dead down to the root zone and required amended top soil fill. It will be months before this turf regenerates from surrounding healthy stolons. I contacted Brian Beltran, the local Carnival owner/operator, regarding the cleanup mess and the dead turf. I suggested that he personally set up a time with me to examine the damage to my landscape and inspect the exterior repaint effort. During our meeting, Brian casually stated that it is Carnival's practice to wash painting tools on-site and dump the diluted wash water over the landscape. He continued to say that the crew failed to dilute the paint before dumping it over my turf! Digging his hole deeper, he claimed that diluted latex paint is, after all, non-toxic. What hubris! As a seasoned chemist, I checked in with the American Coatings Association position on disposal of latex paint washings. They recommend that all painting tools and brushes be washed in a sink and not near a storm sewer drain. Dumping latex paint washings over your landscape leads to diluted latex paint into our ground water. Then, it's headed toward the storm sewer and into our lakes and streams. The crew's careless cleanup, damage to my landscape along with Brian's arrogant and dismissive attitude all reflect negatively on Carnival Custom Painting! When selecting a house painter be sure to outline your expectations from start to finish, including the cleanup. Then, monitor them closely and hold them accountable for their work!

We hired Carnival Custom Painting on a recommendation from a friend. Well they were terrible. They came to paint the interior of the house and in the quote they said they would remove all fixtures, switch covers, and patch any nail holes. They didn't patch ANY nail holes. Yup, None, Zilch, Nada. I also had to follow the painting crew around because they didn't remove any switch covers or fixtures. I felt like I was having to manage the painting crew myself. Heck, if I had to do all of this then I mind as well just paint myself. Brian kept telling us "we usually do a good job". Yeah thanks somehow that doesn't help me. All the other jobs don't really matter to me. Only my house and the quality of work in my house matters. He admits the job he did on our house was "fair". Sure after I had to have him come back and fix all his mistakes it was still just a "fair" job. There are still two touch up spots that look worse than before. I don't like paying full price to a professional painter to do a "FAIR" job and still have issues in the painting. Brian is difficult to work with and clearly could use some polishing in customer service. He will continually talk over you to make his point. Hopefully you take my advice and hire a different painter.