Opinions please - full house redecoration misquoted

lucypilates

 I have just had my whole house redecorated pre moving in, as it is currently unoccupied, no furniture and no carpets!

I found a highly recommended decorator through social media - lots of recommendations and wasn’t able to start immediately - all good signs!

She quoted 26 days, approx £2k materials and £4K labour. The house is a main house and annexe.

 So she started, she had access and it was going well. then she had a family bereavement and took 2 days off (absolutely not an issue for me as I was sure she would make the time up as she said) ... then she told me she hadnt added the days labour required for the annexe and was going to struggle to complete the job. 

Eventually, she gave me an extra week, took on someone to help (the first helper was rubbish apparently but I’m still expected to pay his full day rate!) the next helper was much better! Time got so tight that I chipped in too right at the end ... however the job still wasn’t fully completed. Luckily it is not going to hold up the carpets being fitted which was my initial worry! 

So it’s cost me an extra £1.5k plus I find out she’s over ordered the paint and I’m left with paint I paid £300 for which is off no use now ..,

her work was great but she has left paint drops all over the kitchen floor which I intended to keep for a while and I had to sweep up after and pick up quite a bit of rubbish. Other rubbish (old tins plus wallpaper scrapings) were left in my garage. I had to insist I had help to put the curtain poles back up as they were complicated and long and they would’ve just walked away and left me to struggle with it on my own.

i’m just annoyed and feel let down. I still have all the stair spindles to paint .. so I’ve paid £7.8k, done 2 days work myself, overpaid £300 for materials and it’s not even completed .., 

should I just pay and take it on the chin or would it be reasonable to request some reduction for the paint? She would’ve had a Mark up on the paint I’m sure....

 thanks for reading and hope someone can help me learn from this experience or gain a bit of perspective  ..

comeandgo

Was it part of the contract she got rid of your rubbish?  Unless it was agreed she would then I’d not expect it.

lucypilates

comeandgo said:

Was it part of the contract she got rid of your rubbish?  Unless it was agreed she would then I’d not expect it.

No it wasn’t mentioned in the paperwork.

 However it was a quote not an estimate and the rubbish is only a minor gripe .,

Doozergirl

You're already over budget so the cleaning would only have cost more.  

She's £150 a day.  That's a fair rate for a good decorator.  If you know you got good work out of her and the right amount of time, it's probably one to chalk up to experience.      Decorating is a bit of a hard one to quote for as you don't
know what you're going to find before starting, but you do want it right.    Most of it is about preparation, not the slapping of paint on the walls.  That's how you differentiate the good from the bad.  

stuart45

Doozergirl said:

    Most of it is about preparation, not the slapping of paint on the walls.  That's how you differentiate the good from the bad.  

That's the problem painters face when pricing a job. How far to go with the prep. It's easy for someone to undercut you by cutting down on the prep. A friend of mine told me when he was an apprentice, at Tech they were given some battered old doors and spent ages burning off, filling, sanding in between coats etc. When finished they were like a sheet of glass. He said he's never had the time to do a job like that on site in all his working life, as the cost would be too high, and people are used to lower standards than the finish on their cars.

lucypilates

Thank you for comments - I think I’m going to ask her to not charge me Mark up on the 4 tins of paint as I now have 4 tons of expensive paint I can’t use that have cost me £300!

i will also ask her to reduce by one day as the guy she used to make up the 2 says she had off was so bad she had to do his work again.

 The job is still not finished and will have cost me an extra £1500 … which equates to a 25% overcharge of what was quoted! 

MovingForwards

Sell the expensive paint, if you won't keep a tin for touching up over the years.

Aspiration

Sounds like you’re comfortable with what you want to ask for. 

Hopefully gets resolved for you soon. 

Silvertabby

stuart45 said:

Doozergirl said:

    Most of it is about preparation, not the slapping of paint on the walls.  That's how you differentiate the good from the bad.  

That's the problem painters face when pricing a job. How far to go with the prep. It's easy for someone to undercut you by cutting down on the prep. A friend of mine told me when he was an apprentice, at Tech they were given some battered old doors and spent ages burning off, filling, sanding in between coats etc. When finished they were like a sheet of glass. He said he's never had the time to do a job like that on site in all his working life, as the cost would be too high, and people are used to lower standards than the finish on their cars.

Not only the pre paint prep.  We recently re-carpetted and re-decorated all 4 bedrooms.  Took some organising, but we completely emptied each room in turn - empty, decorate, carpet, put everything back, move on to the next room...

Our most excellent decorator (£150 per day plus paint) said we were a joy to work for, as working in an empty room made his job so much easier - meaning he had more time for the finer details.

He mentioned a previous job, in which he was contracted to paint a lounge.  The owners both worked, so he was given a key to let himself in.  Fair enough.... He arrived to find the lounge not only fully furnished (he was used to working round some furniture) but it still had the curtains up, pictures and mirrors on the walls, ornaments on the shelves, etc etc.  He rang the owners to check that he had the right day/room, to be told that he had - and what was his problem?  

They then complained - and left him a bad review - because he didn't re-hang the curtains/put everything else back when he had finished.