Aqueous Painting

Do Not hire Aqueous Painting or Corey Culham at any cost. Corey will promise you the world and tells you what you want to hear regarding your painting needs in order to get your business. Once he has secured the job Corey's disposition changes and his true personality and attitude comes out. In my case I specifically and clearly told Corey that I wanted all the baseboards, trim, door frames, doors and window trim SPRAYED(2 coats) in order to get that professional smooth finish. He was supposed to caulk the baseboards and door and windows and dap the brad nail holes in all the trim. Finally he was supposed to pole sand the walls before and after priming the walls and after the first coat of paint (he was supposed to apply 2 coats). Corey spent a grand total of 8 hours over 5 days working on my basement. The first day he was there for 3 hours. The second day he was there for and hour and half. The third day he was there for an hour. The fourth day he was there for an hour and the 5th day he was there for an hour and a half. In that time I would go down to the basement to see what Corey was doing and at different times I noticed that he missed a number of things such as he hadn't dapped all the brad nail holes in all the trim and baseboards, he hadn't caulked all the baseboards and door frames, he hadn't pole sanded the walls prior to "priming" them (he had actually haphazardly rolled the first coat of paint without priming the walls and hadn't cut in the ceilings) and more. When I brought up these points at different times to Corey he always had an excuse as to why things were missed and hadn't been done and would then reassure me that he would address those concerns. I could see that he was annoyed by my inquiries and as I asked more simple questions he would then proceed to get curt, then argumentative and then completely dismissive of me to the point that I would be talking to him and he would simply walk away. It became more and more clear over the 5 days that Corey didn't like being questioned or confronted with his mistakes or having his sub par work pointed out to him. This all culminated on the 5th day when I walked downstairs to see how things were going and was mortified to see that Corey had ROLLED and then BRUSHED all the door trim, window casings, door frames, doors and window wells. He painted the doors ON the frames when he was supposed to remover the doors and then the take the hinges off the doors before he SPRAYED them. Everything looked HORRIBLE!! You could see all the brush strokes, lines and ripples in everything that he had rolled and then brushed. As well there were burrs, wood particles and other particulates in all of the paint. Adding to my frustrations, Corey was taping off the baseboards in order to cut in the top of the baseboards. Why would he be doing this when he hadn't given the baseboards a sand and then a SECOND spray coat. There was going to be overspray from the second spray coat so why would you start cutting in the tops of the baseboards? I confronted Corey with these issues and as per usual he tried making up excuses for why he hadn't sprayed these things as I had expressly told him I wanted. He assured me that he was going to now SAND everything that he had just rolled and brushed before he gave it a second quote. What???? After reassuring me that he was now going to sand everything he just painted incorrectly and then spray everything to get that smooth professional finish (thereby creating hours more work for himself ..totally makes sense?) I went upstairs and tried to absorb what i had just seen. Not 5 minutes later Corey walked upstairs and left. I walked outside to talk to him to find out why he was leaving after only an hour and a half and trying to find out what was going on and what he was going to doing moving forward and what the plan was moving forward to address all the deficiencies and mistakes with his work. Again Corey was annoyed, frustrated, curt, dismissive and adversarial with me and abruptly left. It was crystal clear that Corey didn't want to deal with me or my concerns and issues and only dealt with things on his own terms. I realized at this point that Corey's attitude, lack of work ethic, poor workmanship, cutting corners and being unreliable and untrustworthy was not something that i wanted to deal with anymore and as such I fired him. I now have to pay someone else to undo and fix the work that Corey did and the redo the same work. He has cost me twice the money because of his mistakes and poor workmanship. Corey is completely unprofessional , takes zero accountability for his actions or work, has no work ethic and cuts corners wherever he can. He doesn't do what he tells you he will do and what little he does is completely sub par. He will promise you the world in order to get the job and then will completely underperform. Do not trust this man and save yourself the time, money and headaches that you will definitely have if you do hire him.