Testimonials

Italian Village Restaurant,
the Oldest Italian Restaurant in Chicago

Mr. Tom Fortune
Fortune Restoration

Dear Tom,

I am writing to let you know how pleased we were with the quality of service and work provided by your company. As you were aware, you had many unique challenges at our restaurants from matching colors that have been around from the original restaurant in 1927 to working off hours, very early in the morning to very late at night. The challenges were all met and handled with care and understanding.

We were very concerned about restoring the original color and architecture of our restaurants. Your company was able to match all our conerns. I am sure we will call upon you soon again for our future needs.

We would recommend your company to others and if you are in need of a business reference I would be happy to provide you with one.

Sincerely,

Joseph Deininger
General Manager
Italian Village Restaurants
The Village, Vivere and La Cantina Enoteca

View Italian Village's Project Page

The Noble-Seymour-Crippen House, the Oldest Home in Chicago

Bob Fortune
Fortune Painting Co.
6619 N. Lincoln Ave.
Lincolnwood, IL 60712

Dear Bob,

It has once again been my pleasure to work with you and your painting crew to get the east side of our historic, Noble-Seymour-Crippen House stripped and painted this past spring. All the young men on the assigned crew were courteous, ambitious and thorough in completing their job. As usual, they went the extra mile, doing even more than expected, in other words, internalizing their job to come up with the very best product.

Please send me a quote on doing the same job on the west side of the house next year, that will complete our three year mission of completely removing the 150 plus years of accumulated paint and will give us a fresh start for the next 150 years. Best wishes to your company in the future and we look forward to working with you again next year.

Sincerely,

Thomas P. Spenny, B & G Chair

Our Lady of Tepeyac Parish, Chicago, IL

OUR LADY OF TEPEYAC PARISH
2226 South Whipple Street
Chicago, IL 60623-3425
312-521-8400
Fax: 312-927-1610

February 24, 1996

Mr. Tom Fortune
Fortune & Associates Painting Contractors
7100 West Touhy Avenue
Niles, IL 60714

Dear Tom:

The New Year is now well under way, and I hope that is has brought you new blessings and continued success in your work. I have been wanting to write to you for some time, but after we concluded our project on December 12, 1995, we were suddenly faces with the death of our Director of Religious Education, Vicky Ortiz, and then, after the holidays with the death of our Pastor Emeritus, Msgr. Theodore Kaczorowski.

These first months in our renovated Church, therefore, have been times of great joy and of great sadness. One of the blessings which helped us to get through the sadness of losing key member of the community was the wonderful environment we had into which to welcome family, friends and parishioners for prayer and visitation. It also served to offer those from outside the community a chance to see Our Lady of Tepeyac Church now renovated and enhanced in beauty. Many who remembered the former St. Casimir Church were very expressive of how well we had respected the past while adjusting to present day liturgical and pastoral needs. The Cardinal, many priests, and hundreds of people said how much they liked the colors, the brightness and the new arrangement of the altar and the baptismal font.

Tom, I am grateful for the part you and your company played in the beautiful transformation or our parish church. Your personal insights into the inherent beauty of the church, your knowledge of your work and the technical issues involved with the plastering, the colors, and how to best bring out various features of the church, along with the respect of yourself and your workers for the church itself and the people of the parish, all made the entire project a wonderful success. It has been a pleasure working with you.

We are presently trying to arrange a date with the Cardinal, probably in August or September, to have a blessing and dedication. I would be very happy to have you join us at that time. In the meantime, if you are ever in the neighborhood, please feel free to stop and say hello.

Sincerely yours,

Fr. Jim Miller
Pastor

Our Lady of Victory Church

Our Lady of Victory
5212 Agatite
Chicago, IL 60630
773-286-2950

April 30, 1998

To Whom It May Concern,

Last Spring a major roofing problem caused widespread and significant damage to the beautiful ceiling of our church. We contacted Fortune Painting Company to discuss what could be done and, eventually, to do the work.

I dealt primarily with Tom Fortune in this phase of the job. I found him to be honest, knowledgeable, pleasant to deal with and extremely flexible. Our needs included some very tedious restoration of detail work in our ceiling frescos. Tom knew what needed to be done and was able to work out a schedule without significant disruption to our weddings and other major liturgical celebrations. The work began and ended on schedule despite several changes requested by us as work progressed.

Tom's workers were courteous, friendly and always professional. Their clean up after the work was done may have left the church cleaner than it was before they started! When one leak in the roof persisted, Tom assured us that he would return to complete that portion of the work whenever the leak could be found and stopped. This work would also be done as part of the original contract.

I found Fortune Restoration's prices to be competitive with other contractors and reasonable. The many "little extras" that Tom threw in were just added reasons why I would recommend Tom Fortune and Fortune Restoration to any and all.

Sincerely,

Rev. Daniel McCarthy
Pastor

First Presbyterian of Lake Forest, IL

Mr. Fortune
Fortune Restoration
6619 N. Lincoln Ave.
Lincolnwood, IL 60646

Dear Mr. Fortune:

Thank you for all the effort you and your crew invested in the project at First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest. We especially want to express our gratitude for your patience as we made the final decisions regarding color selection and texture for walls and windows splays; we particularly appreciated Frank's working with the committee and painting sample finishes until we arrived at a decision. We wish you could have been there to experience the excitement the congregation felt on Palm Sunday when seeing the stained glass looking even more beautiful through the enhancement of the accenting faux finishes around them.

We would be happy to share our experiences with anyone looking to contract with a quality contractor who delivers a finished product exactly to specifications. The quality of your crew's work ethic was evident in all aspects of their decorating skills, even the daily cleanup, which was very important in continuing business as usual for the life of the congregation. Our elders and program staff were especially concerned about meeting our targeted finish date, which your crew met with time to spare for detailed cleaning in anticipation of Holy Week.

We wish you every success and look forward to working with you again in the future.

Sincerely,

Catherine Mau-Kula
Business Manager

Owners of Award-Winning Painted Lady

Dear Tom:

We wanted to acknowledge and thank you for a job well done in painting our home. We want to compliment you on the excellent appearance of our home, and the extremely professional manner in which you and your colleagues handled our relationship from the quote through the discussions and selection of color schemes to the preparation and painting phases. As you know, we thought so highly of your company that we have already recommended you to several other homeowners and you are free to use this letter to share with other potential customers our specific experience.

We offer the following specific comments:

The quote we received from you was the most complete and detailed quote of any of the painting contractors we contacted. This helped facilitate discussions and, most importantly, avoided any future misunderstandings.

You were extremely responsive to questions and concerns that we raised regarding the potential work. You explanations were thorough, helpful and to the point.

The work crew you assigned to the project were skilled, courteous and easy to communicate with. In particular, the foreman on the job, Adam, was in communication with us every day as to the planned activities, the next step in the process and the timing of various activities. This allowed us to plan and mitigate any potential problems.

Preparing (scraping, sanding and washing) was made tolerable because of the sensitivity of your work crew in mitigating the mess in the house as well as out of the house. Each day, you crew thoroughly cleaned up the work area.

Through discussions with you and the foreman of your work crew, we modified some color schemes for certain target areas during the painting process. This flexibility was encouraged by you and, in hindsight, enhanced the final work product.

Finally, Fortune Restoration's professionalism and skilled work were instrumental in our home being selected as one of the winners of the 1997 Chicago Painted Lady Contest. We are proud and you should be too.

Overall, our experience with Fortune Restoration was extremely positive and we would highly recommend any of your future customers to take advantage of your personnel's professionalism, skilled and courtesy.

Sincerely,

Need Names

View Painted Lady Project Page

Commons of Evanston Homeowners Association

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To Whom It May Concern:

I personally have worked closely with Fortune Restoration over the last 6 years doing a variety of services for Evanson Commons—a fifty four unit condominium complex in Evanston. Fortune has painted all common exterior surfaces in our complex. In addition, Fortune sent out professional carpenters to replace rotten wood.

In 2008, Fortune Restoration completed a major masonry restoration on the exterior brick surfaces of our building which included tuck pointing, 40 clay coping replacements, the rebuilding of 26 chimney crowns and flue pipes, and completely rebuilt 3 chimneys. They also replaced approximately 1000 bricks

Fortune was always very thorough in their approach to solving any of the problems that would arise during their projects. They always came up with well thought out solutions to different issues that faced the Evanston Commons. All plans were executed with the highest level of workmanship in mind. One of the owners, Peter Fortune would personally supervise each project and solve every issue that would arise on such a large undertaking.

Sincerely,

William J. Watt, Jr.
Vice President

Lighthouse Park District of Evanston

Mr. Peter Fortune
Fortune Restoration

Dear Mr. Fortune:

As rehabilitation projects here are winding to a close, I thought I'd take time out to write a formal letter of thanks for your contribution to restoration of our headquarters building, the historic Grosse Point Lighthouse. Despite working under very difficult constraints: time (contractual deadlines), weather (October & November), structural (the outside painting performed on the light tower), your crews did an excellent job of restoring the original exterior color scheme to a very special National Landmark building. It was a pleasure to have had a group of people of such professional caliber to work here, and I personally enjoyed the experience - this is something I've rarely said about contractors in my twelve years of managing the District.

Thanks again for the great job Fortune Restoration did here, and please feel free to use my name for work references.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Terras
Director