Clements Paint & Decorating

Steve is absent — minded. On July 21, he dropped by our house and picked up two cans (one unopened and one half — used) of Benjamin Moore Natura paint for testing. It is not odorless. It temporarily smells worse than Farrow & Ball, but the odor diffuses after three weeks. I emailed him at sales four days ago, and no response. He’s better at returning voice mail. Today, he only returned one half can of paint and claims he doesn’t remember taking a second unopened can. We are missing an entire $ 90 unopened can of paint. Scott apologized and is reimbursing us with a new second gallon of paint.

I’ve deleted my review. Only it won’t fully delete.

I went to the paint store this weekend and had a miscommunication with the clerk about paint color. I got home and realized that this is not the paint color I was asking for and went back on Monday to explain the situation in hopes of getting a refund on the paint that I wouldn’t use. I had a great exchange with the clerk (not the same clerk from Saturday) and was able to get a refund — and was informed this was a one time only thing. They explained to me why they have to put tint in all their paints now and it made more sense to me. Thank you for your understanding, Clements!

In choosing paint colors for my new place, I made several trips to Clements for samples. Everyone at the store was friendly and efficient. They even gave me a free paint sample during one of my visits. I was pleased with the service and will return to this store for my next project!

Wow. Just read some of the reviews of Clement’s paint… I’ve been going here for about 6 years now. at least once a month, if not more.
Everyone. and I mean *everyone*. has never been anything other than respectful, courteous, and helpful. Over the years. I’ve found other paint stores that I can frequent, but b/​c of the service and level of quality of the paint. Clements has always gotten my business.
You can’t please all the people all the time, but apparently you can exaggerate the hell out of your review like Chris M. did. sounds like you were talking so much sh*t that you pissed the owner off pretty good. This guy talks so quietly, people often have to ask him to speak up. ! I think the problem was the Unilocal reviewer, not Clement himself.

We’ve been painting our house and had heard good things about Benjamin Moore paints. Clements was the closest retailer to us and so we went in to look at chips and get some sample cans. These guys know their stuff and have been super helpful. We’ll continue to shop here for all of our paint as we continue to work on our house.

Okay, first of all I must admit I didn’t come to Unilocal with the intention of writing a review on Clement’s Paint. I got to Unilocal’s reviews of Clement’s because I was looking for Clement’s website to check their hours, and I came across a very disturbing review by another customer of Clement’s in the Google results page that didn’t reflect at all my experience with Clement and Steve at Clement’s.
I have been buying my paint from Clement’s for 4 years now, ever since I started remodeling my house in East Austin and only wanted «green» paint with low VOCs, the production of which Benjamin Moore has been a leader in the industry (I know that this doesn’t have anything to do with a bad review, but it’s one of the many things I love about Clement’s.) Steve and Clement both have been so helpful and knowledgeable about paint and painting techniques, and every time I have gone in they have gone out of their way to talk to me about my needs and to answer my questions. And in all my years going over there (through 4 separate paint projects,) I have only observed equal and courteous treatment of all customers, and they serve people from the east side as well as the west side and people from the movie and interior decorating business.
One other thing I want to point out about Clement’s is that they keep an account of everything you buy, so if you need a touch-​up or information on paint you bought years ago, they have that record in your account. I love this!
Finally, I STRONGLY encourage everyone to go to Clement’s personally and do not make a decision as to whether to do business with them (or not) based on the negative review posted on 7÷1÷2008. In fact, when I asked Clement about the review (I thought it was only fair that he be aware of the review,) he was puzzled because the actual incident occurred last summer and wondered why the reviewer chose to write about it almost a year later. Clement did say that some of what the reviewer said was true but some of it was not — when you think about it. this is the way it is with human interaction in general. There are always two sides to a story. I did notice that Clement’s response was more confusion than anything else. Nothing in his manner suggested that he had anything to hide. Anyway, something to think about…
Update on 3÷22÷09:
Once again Clement and his crew have come through. I did some more painting this week, and their new Natura paint, no VOCs, is lovely. I took a friend along who is constantly redoing her house, and instead of going to Home Depot where she normally shops for paint, she bought her paint here. She brought a chip she wanted to match, and Steve used their chromotograph to match it. My friend described how Steve went to great pains to match it exactly. She says that even Home Depot doesn’t use the tool they used to get a match. If you want to shop locally, and you like the personal touch, please consider Clements. Easy parking, very friendly service.

If you ever need to buy paint, I strongly urge you NOT to buy it from Clements Paint downtown. It’s very simple: the owner is extremely arrogant, rude, and unprofessional. Allow me to explain — and I would like to reiterate that my review is 100% accurate — no embellishments or exaggerations — it is what it is.
My friend went to several paint stores and stopped into Clements, at which the employees (extremely nice) allowed her to take home the paint sample cards (which contained all the different shades of paint the store offers) so she could decide what colors would best fit her home. They give you a time limit to hold onto this book of paint shades (I believe it was 2 weeks) and towards the end of the timeframe she called the store to ask for an extension at which the employee obliged.
The next day my friend received a nasty call back from the owner of the store DEMANDING that she bring back the paint stencils immediately since they were overdue. He was unbelieveably rude and even though she mentioned calling in the day before and receiving an extension he said he «did not care and she’s had the stencils long enough!» (WTF?).
Well we went in the next day at which we asked to speak to the owner in person about the way she was treated on the phone. We explained what happened, the owner said the employees were not supposed to allow an extension and «did not tell him about it either» (WTF?). His attitude was extremely abrasive and arrogant (he’s a short Spanish guy, in his late 40’s or early 50’s, charcoal hair with moustache). We told him that customers should not be the ones held accountable — or yelled at — due to his employees and their mistakes.
I was now fuming at the way he was speaking to us — — then do you know what he said? «This is one of the benefits to being the owner of the store — — you don’t have to give a shit if you don’t want to». (WTF?). We were in disbelief at his comments, at which my adrenaline started going and I responded: «Now we see the root cause to all of the issues here — — it’s the horrible management, and you have no clue as to what customer equity is — — we will never ever support your store ever again!».
The owner’s response: «I don’t care if you come back here or not, get out of here, I have enough business and I’ll do fine without yours!». I must say that was by far the most rude and unprofessional situation I have ever been involved with in my 8+ yrs in Austin — — unbelievable. The guy has no class or professionalism, so I plead for you all to please take it for what this is worth and do not support this rude owner at Clements Paint!
A prime example of how you’re NOT supposed to do business. You just don’t treat customers that way, he obviously did not appreciate our business, so we’ll take are money elsewhere.