Got an Estimate This Time

Here are some updates to my post titled Always Get an Estimate Before Having Work Done (Learn from My Pain) (where some readers thought I was too hard on my wife) that I think are worth sharing:

• The friend sent us a bill for the $150 and we paid it. We didn't have him do any more work and, in fact, decided to leave the deck "as is" at least for the winter.

• We decided to have some painting done around the house and I'm glad to say we got four estimates this time. Good thing we did too as the low-bidder was about 40% cheaper than two of the others (and the fourth guy was crazy high.) I just hope we didn't get a cheap deal because the painter's bad (we did check references, but you never know.) And, as one commenter pointed out, how would you know if one paint job would last two years and another five years? The quality of the paint? If so, we should be covered as we're using a good-quality paint (no, we didn't follow my money saving tip on paint, but we may on some later work.)

Comments

[Kevin]

I painted our house a couple summers ago for about $200 which included the paint, rollers, brushes. Best thing I ever did to improve the look. It's a 50s house and had pea green concrete shingle siding on top with darker green around the bottom. Now it is a light brown with off white trim and looks fantastic. (We painted the door red - though it's not paid off yet.) I've had no issues with the paint at all and I just used Behr from Home Depot. I bet it added $2,500 or more to the value of the house.

[asithi]

I think it depends on whether or not the painter is licensed. Licensed painters (or "licensed" anything for that matter) charge more than unlicensed painter.