Friday, October 13, 2006

Who knew?

My mom is still visiting, ostensibly to help me get the house together.
So why do I feel so unproductive?

Yesterday we hit Sherwin Williams for oops paint. While I browsed sample cards, she cornered painters waiting at the order counter. She explains that I am thinking of doing the work myself, but of course she has never painted a room before. Could he come by and give us a quick estimate?

On the way home we make our guesses. She thinks rolling on two coats will cost $400, and would be well worth that chunk of my budget. I wager closer to $750.

Today we wait around for the appointment. He scans the small living room/dining room combo and the kitchen. The walls are already professionally painted, with no prep work necessary. He scratches the information on a worksheet and hands me the estimate.

$1300.

Whoa. I had no idea I had been saving us so much money.

11 comments:

DonnaB said...

It's kind of nice to have tangible evidence of the money you save by being do-it-yourselfers! My husband is just finishing up painting the outside of our house and I figured he saved us $1500 or more. He also did a fantastic job fixing things like rotted windowsills and caulking around windows and double coating everything. When it is our own home, I think we put more care into it than a professional!

Anonymous said...

Amazing, isnt' it? A few years ago, a handyman wanted $600 to dig a small trench in the yard and lay maybe 3 feet of PVC pipe. My DH quickly concluded it would be worth the time and the $10 worth of pipe to do it himself.

Wendi said...

$1300 Yikes!! We are advid Do It Yourself people. Not only have we saved a bunch of money, but it is a great feeling when the job is done. Love your Blog!

Diane said...

Heck, I'd come and do it for $200 (I like to paint). A young friend who had worked 2 summers for a professional painting company needed money to help support his new car. He painted my kitchen - two coats, two windows, four doorways, white trim/yellow walls - for $250. That $1300 tells me the job is "too little" for the pros and they wanted to price you out.

Anonymous said...

i agree they didnt want the work...

second, my sister LOVES to paint and would have done it for a hundred.....when your kids are in school (or are you homeschooling i forget?) you could hire yourself out to paint....
Celina

Amy said...

WHHAAATTT! That is crazy! I have never gotten an estimate for painting, but that completely floored me. I guess we will be doing all the painting here ourselves. That is just crazy!

Meredith said...

Diane, come on over!!!!!

I agree, I think he was bidding up the price because he didn't want to bother with such a small job. He had a folio of photographs showing 7,000 square foot homes.

This might be one of the downsides of having the tiniest home in a mega-mansion zip code.

Kim said...

Meredith, what is the name/number of the yellow paint you like? I'm researching colors for my living room/dining room/kitchen. Just curious.

Meredith said...

When not using salvaged paint, I prefer Porter Paint (a regional brand) in Clean Yellow (for a lighter shade) or Cape Daisy (for a deeper yellow). Both are on the same color card. It is the only yellow I could find that was a true pigment, not greyed down with blacks or browns or golds.

Yellow is a hard color to get just right. It can easily go green in artificial light. If you're thinking of painting a large area, it's worth it to buy some sample pots first.

Goslyn said...

Holy Moly, I had NO IDEA professional painting was so expensive. We always do our own painting, and for the price of a couple of gallons of $20 Behr paint (excellent paint, scrubs like you wouldn't believe) we've repainted nearly our entire house.

Kim said...

Thanks for the info and advice, Meredith!