I Messed Up.

ModernStyle

I have a cousin who bought a house, he is a good kid and needed the walls rolled. I go over to his house last winter, when I was slow and roll his walls for him, I even supply the paint. It took me about a day and a half and he paid me $200, which is nothing, but he is family.
He calls me a few months ago and wants me to bid on his girlfriends parents house, I say sure and head over there. The place is a dump, lots of wallpaper, dirty walls, dog hair everywhere. I figure he told them i did his house for $200 and now they are thinking they will get the same deal. I am not trying to hang out there so I tell the lady I will drop off my bid tomorrow while she is at work, I didnt want to give her a price then becasue I was trying to avoid the whole " you did his house for $200" argument. I write up a few bids, not really beleiving anything will come of them so i dont put any effort into them, I figure my price will scare her away.
I dont hear from the lady for about 2 months so i figure everything is cool, and she doesnt want to hire me. Then 2 weeks ago she calls, she wants it done now, my brilliant a55 threw out the copies of the bids I had because I figured I would never need them. I could remember the prices I quoted, but not the description of work that I wrote down.
I figure I can blow her off still, but then my brother quits his job and needs money. So I feel bad for him and hire him to take down this lady's wallpaper. The only thing else I have going right now is a bunch of exteriors and my brother is scared of heights, so it was either take this job or let my brother starve.
So he goes and removes all the wallpaper, I have her write him a check for the ammount I bid for that step of the job and everything is cool so far. I come over the next day to skim the walls and prep, thats when I notice I under bid by about half. I skim the rooms that had the wallpaper and start to paint the other rooms. These rooms are wall to wall stuff, i can barely get behind anything. The people arent even taking their pictures off the walls, let alone moving their furniture for me. So far I have been there 2 days and all I have done is the living room and dining room. I still have about 4 or 5 days worth of work there, if I bring any of my guys over there then i will be lucky to be able to pay my materials after paying them. I messed up big time.
And to top it all off my cousin calls and tells me that he hopes I gave them a high price because they just inherited $500,000 and can afford to pay me good. I am glad he tells me this after I bid the house. I will finish the damn thing but man I really messed up, I havent messed up like this in a long time.

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DelW

Sounds like Murphy has been hanging around with you. (you know, Murphy's Law)
Seriously though, I had a similar thing happen last month, my hard drive crashed and of course it was in between weekly back ups. I lost a few proposals and of course they called and wanted the work done. luckily I print extry copies for my file and and I always put a "price valid until" clause on my proposals. (usually 90 days)

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If love is blind, why do they make Lingerie?

daArch

MS,

Maybe too late for this, but in your contracts you should have wording about access to walls. You are not Mayflower Movers, you are not insured to move furniture etc, you have a weak back ..... whatever. If they want pictures and furniture moved, that should be extra. If they want them replaced as were, that should be extra (take pictures with a digital camera).

Talk to the homeowner and explain that there were a lot of extras that you normally do not encounter. (You should NOT need to clean up dog hair so that you can paint). If the walls under the paper were damaged beyond reasonableness (and not by your brother), you should be able to add compensation to repair.

Maybe they will listen. If not just bill them anyway for all the N.I.C. (not in contract) work. They may pay it any way.

What can you loose? A customer you never wanted ????

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Wallcovering Installations by Bill Archibald|paperhanger|Eastern Mass|Greater Boston Area|Dover|Wellesley|Franklin|Sharon|MA

PressurePros

Yep, you messed up.. everyone has taken baths on bad estimates. Learn from it and finish the job you promised at the price you quoted. Thats what sets a real business apart from a local yokel that carries a couple of brushes and tarps.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

BMAN

I am starting one of those right now. I am bartering my new website with a women and her husband does not know the value of either so he kept tring to talk me down. I agreed to do it but ow that I am back there I realize that its going to be tight. Oh well the website is kick ass so I will be happy in the end.

ModernStyle

I am not going to charge extra for this house, I will stick with the bid. It will be a good lesson for me, and who knows it may save me from messing up on an even bigger job in the future that really could have hurt me. I am now adding a condition to my bids that the house must be in "ready to paint condition" when I arrive, and I will make it a point to explain what this means to every HO when I am giving them the bid.
These aren't bad people I am working for so I dont want to get mad at them for my stupidity, I will take it like a man. And if I ever do this again feel free to drive to Fort Wayne and kick me in the nuts repeatedly, I will deserve it.

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GregS

You will still need some sort of definition of what 'ready to paint condition' means in your actual contract. Doesn't matter what you tell them when you see them, they will forget. Just hand them a matching list upon acceptance.

I usually just email people the day before with a list of simular things. Usually works out.. "Should I take my car out of the garage so you can hang the opener? Or can you work around it?" was my favourite.

Mach

My quotes were split in 2. the top half was a quote then I would rip it in the center and the bottom half was mine for filing. nothing fancy, 1 sheet of paper half for them half for me. I just bought an 80g external hard drive that is 1.4"thick by 2"x4" for backing up my files. Only paid $60 after mail in rebate. back them up once a week.

Tmrrptr

We did some paint t/u in a newly occupied home that had a minor prob;
carpet guys came thru for a re-stretch and saw furniture in the room;
$350 for them to move. They left.

My thought is their insurance company does not want the liability of them moving personal possessions or the possibility of injury to workers. Basically, it wasn't in the bid.
r

ModernStyle

If I gotta pull a couch out or something it aint a big deal to me, these people have wall to wall stuff though. The stove wouldnt pull out, the fridge wasnt on rollers, they have a piano, like 5 couches, huge bookshelves. None of it is really what i would call nice stuff, it is all old and heavy but in very poor shape. The guy has a huge collection of comics from the 1950's but they are all ripped and faded and worn out looking. Thats how all their stuff is, it would probably be worth alot if it wasnt in such poor condition.
The garage is full of stuff, the extra bedroom is so full you can not walk into the room, it is like .......... I dont even have a word for it. They have enough stuff for 3 houses. The guy asked for a bid on painting the piano today, I have never painted a piano, I did paint a pinball machine once but that is as close to a piano as I have ever gotten.
The Piano has been painted before, originally it was black, then someone painted it pink, and now it is white. I told him he should check and see if it is a good idea to paint old pianos, and that maybe there would be a company willing to restore it for him so it would be worth some money. I dont really want to paint a piano, it just bothers me for some reason.

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welovepainting

Well said