I am not real smart but I can lift heavy things.
I moved this bed, and all the furniture in this room, away from the walls, and then back when I was done painting.
One thning I have discovered in all these years of physical-type work: with proper technique, it is possible for a 140lb woman to move 500lb beds, great big entertainment centers, 32' extension ladders and other very heavy, unwieldy things.
I have moved things back in place that the guy in the house had to get his brother in law and neighbor over to help him with. (I do this just because I get a kick out of it, even though they said "don't worry, we'll move that stuff back.") Bwahahaha.
I'm strong, but it's more how you lift things than brute force. Become one with the 500lb bed, find its balance points and just move it. Quite easy, really.
Maybe when I get my new teeth completed I'll try pulling tugboats across rivers with my teeth. Hmmmm.
Here's my upper first molar.
Master bedroom and bath. $750, straight trade for one of three crowns I need.
Yippee! SW "Basil" in bath, SW "Restrained Gold" in bedrom. I didn't do any trim except for baseboards.
That was an easy two day's work, one tooth down, two more to go. :)
Considered this thought provoking comment.
Someone commented on my
ranty post about the crazy lady, last month.
He raised some interesting points, and I decided this was worth commenting on.
Oh Man!
I feel for you.Thanks!
HOWEVER, I'm sure you work with a contract,being a professional, and I'm sure you have a clause about payments that includes the DOWN payment. I'm sure your contract stipulates details like access to the worksite otherwise billed at $55/hr etc etc (which would include an area to wash your brushes.Nope. No down payment on a job that is only going to take one day. Would you expect a down payment in liquid funds from, say, someone coming over to say, repair your refrigerator? Yes, I almost always have a signed, written contract and did in this instance. A down payment was required for the exterior. Balance "on satisfactory completion of all work."
No, I don't stipulate conditions in that much detail. I don't know anyone who does, for small jobs. I certainly don't stipulate a requirement for an area to wash my brushes. That's assumed a given - it's the only time in 27 years that I have been denied access to water. I don't stipulate things like "must be able to park within 100 feet of the residence" either - I assume that's also a given.
You should not tolerate any wishy washiness over color with any client, but of course that is specified on your SPEC SHEET in your contract, ISN'T IT?Nope. Client wishy-washiness about color is a common in residential paint jobs. A painter who "won't tolerate" this with residential clients won't get much referral business, I assure you. Yes, I charge for extra trips and time for color changes. Varies with size and complexity of job.
If a client is 3" form you while you are working you should STOP and say"my insurance does not allow you or any children or dogs or cats to be in the work area. As a matter of fact, you being here is a breach of contract, and subject to work stoppage which is clearly stated in the contract you signed when you gave me my deposit. This breach of contract is billable at $55/hr until it is rectified. AND if I have to go get another color of paint, that time is also billed at the same rate, as well as my marking up the paint cost 20%.Uh, no, haha. My insurance does not disallow any such thing and I don't specify location of clients, their children, or their pets, (in inches no less!) in my contract. That's plain silly. It might have been 4 1/2 inches, I didn't take out my measuring tape and check.
Much of my work is repeat business, all is from referrals, people live in the houses I work in and sometimes there are children and pets and adults in the same room while I work. Shocking, I know. 99.9999% of my clients are reasonable and considerate people who would be amused and possibly bemused by such demands.
I've had work done on my own houses by competent, experienced trades people. Never have I seen a contract written out in this sort of detail. Since I generally know these guys from other jobs, it's generally a "handshake" agreement and it's always worked out fine.
Don't let this mental case roll over you.Trust me, it was much easier to walk away. I pick my battles wisely! Over the years I've had to sue in small claims court, threaten leins, block a driveway (a city councilman no less, who kept writing bad checks) and once, had my 6'4" burly ex-husband threaten to get medieval on a GC who was trying to get out of paying his subs. Last time I took someone (an attorney, no less) to small claims court, he paid up before we went to court because he was gonna lose anyhow. That was....11?12? years, and thousands of clients ago.
BTW You do have insurance, and a tax id #, and a business license, and workers comp or the proper opt-out, right?Yes but what's that got to do with the crazy lady?
You may want to log onto www.contractortalk.com if you are unsure of any of the things I have mentioned. My name at the site is Terrence, and I would be happy to help out if I can.I will definitely visit, when I have time. I used to hang out a little at a paintertalk forum, but that was years ago. I don't doubt your sincerity and knowlege one bit. But not all of it applies to real small contractors who work with residential clients in their homes. Maybe I'd be in the serious six figure net income bracket if I followed your advice to a T, I dunno. :)
Woo hoo, I'm gonna get new teeth.
Told the dentist folks $750 for the master bedroom and bath....turns out, that's what he charges per crown. I need three crowns, then my mouth is all fixed up. I had the bone grafting (ouch, and bloody expensive too) and titanium studs put in two years ago. I never made the commitment to spend more money on the crowns - it was important to get the bone graft done. With missing teeth you start losing bone bone eventually, which over time can actually change the shape of your face! and the studs are way in the back, you can't see them. I kept hoping to run into a dentist who would trade....my regular dentist doesn't need painting.
And now I have, yippee. He said as long as we're trading, they need more painting done so hopefully I will get it done for "free." Well, I will pay for the paint, but that's no big deal. As busy as I am, it won't affect cash flow to not get paid money for working, and I'd much rather get these teeth finally done!
PS, the photo is not me, it's from
this strange site.
Guess what, I painted some more stuff last week.
This is always a really busy time of year. I think some people meant to get around to having stuff done, then the whole summer zips by the way it does, and the "better get it done before the holidays" kicks in.
So anyhow, I had the audacity to go away for a fun weekend, which means I got a bit behind, which means I am playing catch-up now and juggling several jobs & no time off in the foreseeable future, dammit. I haven't had time to get caught up with email and my favourite blogs - I'm looking forward to sitting down for a cozy evening online tonight! I also have dog class three nights a week so right now seems like I'm always running hither and yon.
I remember when pretty much everything I painted was various shades of beige and white. Over the last ten years, more and more people are choosing strong colors and it's much more fun for me!
This morning I am going to bid a job....one of them is a dentist. I LOVE trading. The right side of my mouth has about $5000 worth of dental work. Growing up in Europe and the Mediterranean, most dentists would yank out bad teeth instead of filling them. Consequently, I had lots of missing molars so I have some lovely fixed bridges and implants, which aren't cheap but I traded for every penny. I have three more to go on the left side, then I'll have a mouthful of beautiful teeth again. (No, I wasn't toothless, they were all back teeth!)
Anyhow I am told these folks are open to trading so cross your fingers....
Just another Monday....
First thing I did Monday morning was dump a quart of paint all over the carpet. After cleaning that up, I brought in the ladder from where it had sat outside over the weekend, only to find boxelder bugs had set up residence in one of the rungs. All day I was taking wandering bugs off the walls and releasing them outside. Then I realised I had miscalculated paint amounts (you'd think I'd never do this after all these years but I still do) and couldn't finish the one big wall without a trip to the paint store 20 miles away.
Tuesday was looking pretty good though.
Har Har.
(Scott - just kidding! Tee hee.)
Well, I haven't done anything thrilling in the last week and and juggling two jobs, neither of which are close to being finished. In fact I am supposed to be in two places at once today. Whoops. All my ladders and tools are in Fenton, so ding ding, they'll be graced with my presence today.
My brother came for a visit from Chicago so I didn't work for an entire weekend, the weather was absolutely gorgeous and we just hung out and Did Stuff that didn't involve my touching a paint brush.
I did have a little front deck built last week, he did a very nice job, it's really solid! I should stain it grey to match the house. Previously there were crumbling concrete steps and a falling-apart hand rail, so this is a big improvement.
Gimme a break....
Pantone is a specialty high end paint company - I've heard of them; never encountered the paint.
Anyhow they are now graciously allowing their oh-so-exclusive palette of colours to be made available to the unwashed masses. Well, the unwashed masses who feel like spending $375 for a
large color sample book, or a paltry $165 for your basic fan deck. (The kind available at just about every other paint store for between $10-20, free if you're a painting contractor, decorator or anyone else who might buy that brand.) I have a bag with about 15 fan decks from many paint companies and didn't spend a penny on any of them.
Anyhow, this is a bit too precious and snooty for my plebian taste! Probably a clever move - the press release went out everywhere and was
reported locally - to garner the we really really want to be just like Martha Stewart and if it costs more it must be better crowd. I imagine high end decorators are going to snatch this up and start recommending Pantone paint instead of Benjamin Moore now.
I can't do the metric conversion in my head exactly but a rough guesstimate is about $150 for a gallon of their basic interior flat paint? Calling it "matte" instead of "flat" allows you to charge more I think. It's the same stuff.
The very best interior flat paint I buy - Graham ceramic flat; suitable for high traffic commercial use and scrubbable even in the flat finish - retails for a little over $50. My cost is about $37.00. It's not about cost, really - but at some point it just becomes a rip-off.
Reminds me of when Ralph Lauren first hit the market, selling for some ungodly amount of money. And it is CRAP paint. The store I used back in Denver who sold it had so many complaints about it they tried unsuccesfully to get out of their contract with RL. I think the formulas have been changed now, but do you know what the original RL paint was? Medium-grade Sherwin Williams paint, relabelled and jacked up.
Some people want so desperately to have the cachet they perceive in staged advertisements in House Beautiful, Vogue and the like. Clever marketing lets them think they get a piece of it by spending too much for consumer goods. Isn't that silly?
I don't care how good Pantone paint is - and I'm sure it's very nice stuff - it's not going to hold up, go on, wash or last three or four times better than other good paint. Once it's on the wall, nobody knows what brand it is!
