How many 'planning' chats did you have?

[lemoncurdcupcake]

I don't think this is normal, but hoping to sense check before I overreact.

We have a family friend who is a bit of a jack of all trades. Painting, decorating, interior building, gardening, diy, that sort of thing. He's built some incredible stuff for himself and friends and comes well recommended.

In the Autumn he was over with some other friends and we chatted about installing some shelves and storage inside an exisiting cupboard. He was SO enthusiastic about the project, said he'd love to help us achieve something beautiful. Since then he's had loads of projects on and we've had some pretty huge life events so our calendars haven't aligned. He's been over to our house a few times in a social capacity and on one of those visits he took some rough measurements. He also visited earlier this year in a more professional capacity to measure up and talk about what we'd like, we've had a semi-sporadic running whatsapp chat which includes videos and photos of the sorts of things we like but we've been pretty clear that we're not experts on the topic and aren't fixed on a design, would rather he sent us some sketches of what was possible based on the sorts of things we've said so far, along with an estimated quote and we can go from there.

Asked him last week when we might be able to get started and he's suggested he comes over to discuss 'the vision' and measure up.

My alarm bells are ringing. Surely you don't need to discuss refurbing a cupboard this much?! The measurements and images are all in the chat....

We had built-ins in our last house, the builder came over once, measured, made some really fabulous suggestions which we loved and then the next time we saw her it was because she was ready to start. But now I'm not sure if she was just really great and has set my expectations really high and this guy is more the norm?!

It doesn't sound as though you have actually agreed on what you want though?
He will want to come over and make sure he knows exactly what the plan is before he goes and buys materials etc.
Are you paying him for this- perhaps he wants to agree a price before starting?

I don’t understand the problem here? You want him to do some work for you, and he wants to come round and make sure he knows exactly what you want before he starts work? Surely that’s a good thing.

Thanks for the responses. I guess my question was about managing my own expectations as it's only my second experience booking this sort of thing. He's already visited multiple times... twice (technically) where he's measured and discussed the plan, plus I've sent him measurements and design ideas digitally for the last six months so to hear he wants to come again to measure and discuss surprised me. It's very different from my last experience which involved a initial email, one visit, receiving sketches/quotes, accepting the quote and then the job got underway. I didn't provide any drawings or measurements myself, just an idea of what we were looking for (from pinterest!) and the tradesperson filled in the blanks and sent over design options with costs for us to choose from. Going from that to this was vastly different, and wanted an idea of whether I was being unreasonable finding it a tad frustrating. So I appreciate an external persons opinion and insight :)

Can you not just remind him you've already discussed it and measured up and ask whether and when he can just come and do the work?

@mrbluebirdonmyshoulder yeah absolutely, post wasn't asking what to do next, it was asking what was normal.

All sorted now though, have decided that regardless of whether this is standard practice this guys and I just evidently don't have compatible working styles so have someone else coming over to look at the job tomorrow and he's already said that we'll have the quote by the end of this week and he can schedule us in the week after easter. Much more my style of operation.