I was awarded the painting contract to paint Michelle Lageson's house. The awarded amount was $5850.50.in addition to painting her home I also told her I would help her with choosing colors. She wanted to keep the same exterior body color but was undecided on a trim color.
It seemed easy enough but Michelle had no idea what color she wanted. So I came over and presented a color palette with 3 different options. She liked none of them and presented me with 2 colors that she liked. She said she wanted a classic/groovy color. I then went and bought 2 trim colors and 1 body color that she wanted. She said "I hate them both." She told me that she has no idea what she likes.
After that visit I realized I could not help her and was wasting valuable time helping someone that could not be helped so I said I would hire a color consultant for her project and take that amount out of the the job, assuming I was doing the job as agreed upon.
The color consultant came over and spent 2 hours with her and colors were chosen. She even went so far as to text me and say "She was very easy to be with and real supportive-just what I needed! She was willing to drive around with me to see the mood I was trying to describe."
I informed her that same day that we would be washing her house no later than 3 days from that text. Michelle said "sounds great." 2 days later she had concerns about the job due to the rain and a few days later she said "our window has passed." She had mentioned to me that if we could not paint then go ahead and invoice her for the consulting and paint I purchased, which I did. After multiple unresponsive emails and calls She now has decided that the consultant was not worth the amount that I PAID FOR HER, $276.37 and that she would pay me only $100 of the $296.37 that was invoiced. Small business owners beware she does not pay invoices and decides after the fact what is fair even after she has agreed to it. One can only imagine what it would have been like to collect $5850.50 for painting her house and then have her decide that it was not worth the agreed upon amount.
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