Is my contractor crazy, or am I?

Hello,

I'm hoping for some advice. I'm thinking my contractor is crazy but maybe it's me and I just thought I would verify.

I just had my hardwood floors replaced, spending $10,000 on the job. In the contract the contractor says the only painting included is the baseboard molding, which is fine because my paint was in good condition. When the job was done, which looked great, I was surprised to see that all of my walls were basically destroyed with dirt. Not only were they coated with dirt from ripping up the old floors, but there were handprints, footprints, scrapes from where the contractors were moving pieces of plywood around not to mention cracked plaster around the doorframes. I told the contractor I couldn't believe what the walls looked like and they would need to be repainted. There was too much dirt on them to even wash them. In my mind this was damage caused by them which they needed to repair.

Since this was not part of the original job and I knew they worked hard on the floor (which looked great) I thought it would be kind of me and a nice compromise if I paid for the paint and materials which I did and they cost me about $200. After the job and when I paid the balance of the contracted price for the floors, the contractor told me he would charge me "only $500" for the painting which is a big discount from the normal price. I was surprised and said to him why would I pay you extra for damage that you caused? If I took my car to a mechanic to fix the engine and he broke the windshield I wouldn't expect him to tell me I'll give you a discount and fix the windshield for only $200. Am I crazy? Or is he crazy?

He referred back to the original contract which says only the baseboard would be painted and I said that's fine but the contract did not state that you would destroy my walls nor did you verbally tell us that there was even a remote chance that our walls would need to be repainted after the job. This is work he does all the time this is the first time we had our floors done. And now I regret even spending the $200 on the paint. Do I tell him to get lost?

He's not a very smart business man because now as far as I'm concerned he's ruined a relationship over a small amount of money. I was going to use him to remodel my bathroom but now he's left a bad taste in my mouth.

Love to hear anyone's thoughts.