Berkeley Plastering

I hired Richard to fix a poorly though out deck ledger, where water could get behind the stucco. The solution chosen was a custom bent metal flashing the width of the house, and a little bit of stucco patching and painting.
Richard had a casual, almost cavalier, approach to the job. The estimate was for «probably a half day at $ 600». Richard did not show up himself, but his crew did. On the day of work it became apparent that the flashing had been made too tall, and the guys spent hours chipping away stucco so it would fit. Richard charged $ 950 for the job, his full day rate.
The guys left at 2pm, leaving the piles of stucco chips and a mess in the yard. They never quite finished the job, and Richard would never return my phone calls on the subject.

Several years ago, I managed a rental building in North Oakland. My tasks involved meeting vendors, service companies and the like. The owners hired Berkeley Plastering to repair the building exterior, restucco and paint. There were several problems: Richard did not rent a porta-​potty for his workers and based on tenants’ complaints, the workers were urinating in the garage; the painter brought his dog to the worksite and allowed it to run around (off leash); working weekends without notice to tenants. I shared the tenants’ complaints with the owners and they discussed them with Richard. A majority of the tenants were elated when Richard and his company left the project, since they no longer had to deal with a charming salesman with a cavalier attitude. Earlier this year, I drove by the building on the way to band practice — and noticed the paint was starting to peel.

Richard and his crew did a fantastic job for our family. As we live high up in the Oakland Hills, we were experiencing the typical leaking due to the weather that our stucco-​covered house gets during the wet months. Richard was meticulous in his work, excellent in his communications, and, when a small patch of plastering did not meet his standards from a cosmetic standpoint, he immediately redid a portion of it.
We were so pleased with the work and we found his crew so pleasant and trustworthy, that we expanded our job to include painting the entire inside of the house as well as finishing a room that the original owners of the house had left unfinished.
We highly recommend Berkeley Plastering.

I found Richard on Unilocal,checked out his Website, and I was impressed. I am extremely happy with the work he and his workers have done. The texturing he did to match my existing is fabulous. He was responsive to my calls, got the work done in a timely way, cleaned up the area before they left for the day, and did a fabulous job repairing my exterior stucco where I had an awning removed. There were some challenges with my old stucco, but Richard knew how to deal with it and the finish work looks fabulous. Also, he did things the right way, something I appreciate — no shortcuts. He even removed my downspouts to get to the area right behind them so it all matches perfectly. Couldn’t be happier!

We hired Richard to re-​plaster our cracked/​water-​damaged bedroom ceilings, repair large holes in the existing plaster left by the previous owners, and patch up cracks in order to prepare for repainting. A large part of our decision to hire him and his crew over the other contractors we received bids from was because the job was time-​sensitive and needed to be completed within a short window of time (I was 36 weeks pregnant), and Richard assured me it would be no problem.
During the course of the work, Richard was frequently very late, and in one instance, left his crew without proper supplies or adequate instructions. After his crew finally finished plastering our ceilings (and did a great job — the quality of the work is very apparent), Richard became even harder to get ahold of. We were ready to paint, but our walls still had holes and cracks, making it impossible to move forward. After finally tracking him down, he showed up five hours after our agreed-​upon time with a putty knife and a container of spackling paste at 6 PM. He hurriedly patched up the bare minimum in one of the bedrooms, and when I pointed all the cracks that he hadn’t touched (I had pointed them out when he came to give his estimate, and marked the worst ones with a marker), he told me that I just needed to paint into the cracks to fill them in. I was stupid; I believed him.
After waiting for two days for Richard to return to fill cracks and gouges in the other bedroom, as well as re-​texture a wall that his crew had re-​plastered, we gave up and fired him two weeks into what was supposed to be a less than one week job. He was understandably upset — we weren’t happy to have had to do it, either. He was apologetic and in regards to payment, he asked us to pay him a fair portion of his invoice, based on how much of the work we felt he completed. When he received the check (15% less than his estimate, and I thought a generous amount given that one room was still full of huge cracks and large holes), he emailed my partner and asked why we had paid him so little.
The bottom line is this: when Richard and his crew actually get work done, they do a very nice job. Unfortunately, he apparently doesn’t respect his clients’ timelines, and has a major issue with punctuality that I have never experienced with any other contractor. Our ceilings look marvelous, but every time I see the terrible cracks in our bedroom wall (no, painting into them did not work — these need professional attention), I’m reminded of the stressful experience.

We had some moisture problem with one side of the house and had to tear the stucco off and fix the problem. we wanted to give local business our job but it ended up a disaster… very expensive and just a really bad job… a client of my husband recommended Richard and his crew… they redid the stucco and did a fabulous job… since we had planned to get all our windows replaced we entrusted that job to Richard… we are so happy with the result… Richard is very good to work with… he is very patient with my husband who always has alot of questions and very particular how he wants things done. he always responded to our call or e-mails…the crew he had to replace our windows was great… they always left their work place very clean… almost cleaner than before… they were very courteous and friendly and hard working… when we get ready to redo our kitchen we will definetely give Richard a call… i can recommend him warmly

I don’t recall who recommended Berkeley Plastering to me. It was either a realtor or an architecture maven. I hired him about 5 or so years ago to remove the 1970s style popcorn/​cottage cheese nastiness that was slathered on the ceilings in my old house. There were some details to the ceiling (I think it’s called picture frame) that meant that I was not going to just hire some mooks to put up thin drywall. I’d heard it was an «artisan» (exact word) outfit and wanted artisanal work.
What they did was to put a fibreglass mesh on the ceiling and put a coat of plaster over it. I jokingly said to Mr. Spencer that it had to be smooth as a baby’s butt. They did the living room ceiling and second bedroom ceiling. It was very smooth and I showed it off by using high gloss paint on the ceiling. (It’s a darkish room)
I liked the work well enough that they were back this year to do the dining room and entry way. The dining room was a chimeric mess of popcorn ceiling, nasty drywall around one window, Fred Flintsone sloppy crap on Depression era wallpaper, my efforts at removing the Paleolithic crap, and so on. I wanted it to look pretty, so I called Mr. Spencer again.
His workers are definitely craftsmen and the walls and ceiling look very smooth and all the detail (very very fussy this time because of all the windows and the ceiling details) was very precise and historically correct. They covered everything very well and, as they were leaving, literally were swabbing the deck with shop rags to get the dust up. (Some dust will get around, but it was very very minimal.) They left the place clean and undamaged.
I have no idea how the price compares, because I’m lazy and did not feel like taking bids and was able to write a check for the work. I’d recommend these guys for fiddly work with odd corners and details in old houses.

Richard Spencer just finished an exterior stucco job on our house and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Our home is a 1918 bungalow that did not see much exterior maintenance with the previous couple of owners. We removed hideous brick planters on the front and back facades of the home, and some rickety wooden steps at the back door. But removing one problem revealed another. We were definitely in need of some serious stucco work.
In these locations and in other spots where inferior patching had been done in the past, Richard went to work. The results are amazing. The new work blends perfectly with the rest of the house. All the spots are as good as new and Richard came at a very reasonable price. We’ll definitely be calling him again if the need arises. Call him. You won’t regret going with Berkeley Plastering.