Get a quotation before you start the decorating work or the cost can get out of hand like it did for us
We didn't want to paint the town red, just our living room!
Get a quotation before you engage a professional. It doesn't matter what the job is or who is doing it, if they expect to present a bill at the end, then get a quotation at the beginning. That is some sound advice from one who should have known better having spent a large part of his working life pricing contracts but who once made the mistake of thinking the price could be sorted out when it came to pay the bill.Normally our policy is always to get a quotation for everything but we were new to the area and conscious of offending the locals by not observing the customs of the region. Everyone else seemed to get things done on trust and without establishing a fixed cost first so we went with the flow. Fools!
Our front room needed painting and neither my wife nor myself were physically able enough to do it. We had heard that (amazingly) our local postman was actually an experienced and very capable decorator. We got him up to our house and he wandered around asking intelligent and valid questions. There was no mention of the need to get a quotation.
He then arrived with sheets and covered up our furniture with a view to starting the decorating the next day which he did and finishing on the following day.
The area we were being asked to pay for painting was more than the area of the walls and included the openings like doors and windows!
We hadn't thought to get a quotation - how much could a bit of decorating cost? With all due respect to him, this was only our postman earning a bit of pin money on the side. How wrong could I be? Two days later he had finished and the time came for him to present his bill for us to settle. In true Italian style, he made a great show of calculations and justification while all I had expected was a piece of paper saying x hours at so much per hour plus the cost of the paint.
Let me just explain what we are talking about here. This was one large room (floor area about 35 square metres) which had taken him two days to paint with two coats. For that, he wanted nearly a thousand euros (about $1400). I couldn't believe it but I was met with a stony-faced expression and a spurious argument about the standard rate per square metre in the locality justified what we were being asked to pay.
When I asked him how many square metres he was claiming his area came to more than the total of the walls and ceiling and he had made no deductions in his bill for the large doors (unpainted) and the glass panel that took up 50% of one of the long walls. Eventually we agreed a more reasonable price with him but he left scowling and we were unable to use him again - all because we didn't get a quotation first.
The moral of this unhappy tale is to always get a quotation before you engage anyone to do anything. Yes, you may offend some people by the very suggestion that money is an important matter, but, I promise you, you will upset them and yourself more if you wait until the end and then have to quibble over the bill.
Don't forget to get a quotation.