1st Squad Custom Painting

Cabinets are where this Harwich company separates itself. "Anybody can paint cabinets," a customer wrote in November 2023, "but these guys refinish them the way it should be done" — old finish stripped, multiple primer coats, intermediate sanding to fill the grain, then a hard Italian lacquer. A 2024 customer had the drawer faces taken back to the shop and sprayed while the frames were done on site. Another, in August 2025, needed four words: "like a factory finish." 1st Squad Custom Painting works out of 195 Queen Anne Rd in Harwich and covers Cape Cod. Its Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration is active. The site says over a decade of experience and names only "Leo" as founder — and Leo is who customers get: he is named personally in nearly every one of the 29 Google ratings that average 4.9. The exterior work reads the same way, with prep as the recurring theme. In August 2025 a homeowner whose front clapboards and back trim were repainted wrote that the crew "spent days preparing the surfaces." A June 2025 account describes rotted wood repaired and boards sealed, old paint scraped and sanded, primer plus two finish coats, and weathered shingles on three sides washed back to silver — with the foundation shrubs protected throughout. A 2023 trim job on the Cape included mildew remediation and wood filling before a brush was picked up. One account cuts against all that, and it is recent enough to matter. In August 2025 a customer who had first hired Leo to stain a piece of custom furniture, then trusted him with an entire interior finish, wrote that the work was good but the job ended badly: he was asked to pay in full that day because Leo needed the money, the basement floor was left over-painted and never cured properly, minor touch-ups went undone, and his calls afterwards went unreturned — he hired another painter to fix the floor. A separate June 2025 customer also prepaid, and in that case reported Leo came back and finished. So: a strong choice for cabinet refinishing and for exterior repaints where the prep is the job. Before signing, tie payment to completion rather than to the last day on site, and put the punch list in writing.