Decorating quote - including woodwork

[Lemansky]

We're in the middle of getting our landing, stairwell and box room replastered. Plastering is done and he came and did the mist coats yesterday, we are painting the rest of the box room ourselves and the downstairs hallway, which hasn't been replastered.

He's not back until next week now but I text him today to confirm that he was going to do the woodwork on the stairs, including bannisters, skirting, landing side door frames + window next week. He's come back saying that he's not sure as it will add a lot of time onto the job.

He did ask us to provide wood paint, so I assumed he was going to do it. But when I came in yesterday none of those areas had been sanded, and by the amount of dust that our house was covered in (he hadn't put down any dust sheets or closed doors etc, but that's another thread) he was doing a lot yesterday, so I thought I'd better double check.

I assumed that the woodwork was included in the 'decorate hallway' part of the quote, but I may be expecting too much. It just seems odd that he'll paint the landing so it's looking nice and then we have to go back and make a mess to get the woodwork done. What's normal in this situation?

[McBaby]

Our hallway quote including woodwork. I would think it would be strange not to but there is so much wood in the hall it and is v time consuming it makes the hall quite expensive.

[chelle792]

Hallways are expensive - bizarrely the most expensive. Ask him to give a breakdown of the quote so you know exactly what you're getting.

I'd also try someone else

[chelle792]

Equally, is he a plasterer or a decorator?

[Lemansky]

He's a plasterer but has a decorator, who's going to come with him next week. I just thought it would include woodwork as, I agree, it'd be strange not to. I'll see what he says when he comes back in next week and go from there.

He's actually a fantastic plasterer, I'm so impressed at what he's done so far, but I do think it would be odd if he's gone to all the trouble of plastering and painting and then we've got to go and sand down all the woodwork that he's not done as it'll end up looking a state!

[chelle792]

Yeh it does seem weird. DH hates it when customers want to decorate one part themselves cuz he'd rather do the whole job.

Maybe the decorator has him on an expensive day rate

[lalalonglegs]

I agree that usually quote would include woodwork but, in this case, perhaps he thought only the areas with new plaster were going to be painted (although it's odd he asked for wood paint if that were the case)? How much is the quote overall? If you know roughly what the day rate is for your area, how does it stand up with/without doing the woodwork?

[Lemansky]

I would love to be able to afford for him to paint the downstairs hallway as well as the landing and stairwell but we just can't stretch to it at the moment.

The total quote is around £1400 and that's for the plastering, decorating hall and mist coat in box room. I'm afraid I don't know what the day rate is for our area.