Color Works Painting Services

Color Works Painting Services is a small Salem painting contractor at 138 Highland Ave, run day to day by Justiniano Mendez — the 'Justin' reviewers name — with three people on the books. Painting is the core: interiors, exteriors and cabinet refinishing. Its own site adds siding, roofing, carpentry, flooring, fencing, wall repair and power washing, and its Thumbtack page also takes bathroom remodels. The written record is small but uniformly good: five accounts between 2021 and 2024, and a 5.0 rating from six Thumbtack ratings. What customers describe is consistent. In a 2021 review a homeowner credited the crew with interior painting plus major plaster and drywall repair in two bathrooms. A 2022 customer singled out the basics that are hard to get — the phone answered on the first call, an estimate delivered on time, then the crew back every consecutive morning, tidying up at the end of each day. A 2023 reviewer described a condo painted with Benjamin Moore product, non-stop work and cleanup throughout. The most recent, from June 2024, is short and positive. Two things are worth pinning down. How long the business has been going is genuinely unclear: Thumbtack's overview says 21 years while its own About text on the same page says 18 and 'Since 2005'; Angi's highlights band says 8 years while its About text says over 15; the company website says 20-plus. Ask directly. The trade spread is also wide for a three-person shop, so if you are hiring for roofing or flooring rather than painting, ask what they self-perform and what gets subcontracted. For interior repainting and plaster or drywall repair around Salem and the North Shore, this is a credible small outfit with an owner who shows up on the job. Get the scope, the tenure answer and the crew arrangement in writing, and ask for recent local references — the written record is thin enough that a couple of current ones will tell you more than the star rating.