My wife found the contractor, set up the time and he did [what appears to be] a good job. Everyone is happy...except to me it seemed a very high price for one room....relativey small child's bedroom.
I realize no one can give a bid without seeing the room, but is there some kind of average rate per room for painting? He also filled some cracks, etc.., but still----to me the it seems I paid as much to have the one room painted as it would have for the whole house (not that I was willing to go thru the hassle of painting the whole house at this time anyway).
So please...if someone can give me just a ballpark estimate, I'd appreciate. Just in 100's. $400? $600? 200?
Nobody can see with your minimal info, and without SEEing it. Sounds like you are a cheapshit , wanting work for free,,,, Paint yourself the next room, then you will wake up , have FUN..... Or get Bids Like we all do , and compare....Sounds like you know how to paint, but forgot about ins , Taxes. profit, and LIFE. DO IT YOURSELF THEN. dont bitch, lazy ass, does it look good? yes. that is what the SMART wife Paid for.. ASSS.
OH I forgot you think the WHOLE HOUSE SHOULD HAVE COST THE SAME and SHE IS AN IDIOT ,,,,,,,, I smell Divorce or dominance, Contractors work with competiors prices. Contractors want work Contractors work to be competive and get work WAKE UP BOZO YOU ARE AN ASS HOLEY FUCCK
The painter (in the other room) said: " $6000 for a small room, $10,000 for a large room, sight unseen.... and would more than likely come in way under bid." He's putting the finishing touches on a 15x36 foot living room for $500.
An average room can run between 150.00 and 350.00. Why do people post just to be insulting. I think your post is valid. I'd want to know if I was getting a deal or being ripped off too. Next time get several estimates so you can make a more informed decision.
Kinda tough without more information. How large is the room? Was there anything special about the paint job (such as stencils, or artwork) or did he just paint the 4 walls and ceiling white then call it a day? Were there any challenging aspects of the job? How many windows? Any woodwork? If so, was it stained or just painted over? What kind of paint did he use (brand, etc.)? How many coats? What market (i.e., west coast, east coast, midwest)? These are all going to be factors in the cost.
You could reasonably expect the price to range anywhere from a few hundred bucks to over a grand depending on the answers to the above. One can only assume that there was SOMETHING special about this job that you and your wife decided to farm it out -- if you just want to paint a room you could have done that in an afternoon for maybe $100 all by yourself. In the end the only question is -- are you satisfied with the work? If so, then there's little point worrying about it now. :-)
So tell us -- how much of your money DID your wife pay? :-)
In California?...or in New Hampshire? Union painter?...or college kid with a station wagon and a step stool? 8x10 room? 12x24 room? Who supplied the paint?
THAT'S why. Sometimes we just get tired of stupid questions.
You've now made him feel either really good...or really bad...giving a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question.
Valid? In theory, yes, but the op gave no information. Lots of trim? Panel doors? Crown molding? Many different colors? A 12 over 12 window takes much more time to paint than just trimming a vinyl clad window. Who moved the furniture?
My spare bedroom can be done with $20 in paint and two hours time. My dining room would take $100 in paint and two days. Minimal size difference, but huge decorating differences. Ed
whats the sq footage double coat , 3 color ,closets, windows and type, base ,and ceiling trim doors and from 70 to 700$ hows the marriage.... this IS for divorce ,,, or you ARE AN ASS AS WE FIGURED.........
In response to some of the questions and the flamer:
We paid $650. The room is about 12'7" x 11'5", plus a decent sized closet. There was nothing fancy. He went AROUND the window frames....as I would expect.
I never said he cheated us. I don't feel cheated. I do feel that we paid more than I was prepared to pay...or more than the reasonable and customary rate.
My wife said he used 3 coats. Not sure that's true, or if it was necessary. I feel the painter ----who I only met briefly when he was almost done--- was a very concientious type and worked in good faith and did a good job. I just feel that he may have been at the very high end of the bell-curve in terms of what he charged. Or that the type of job was more than we needed...or something like that. What's done is done and I will not be insulting the painter (or my wife) and asking him for a reduced price or complaining.
I won't jump off a bridge if you tell me I overpaid, etc. I would just like to know. You can't upset me, but on the other hand, if you tell me that the price I paid is within reasonable and customary rates for the type of work that was done, I'll feel better.
Oh.... The paint was provided by us. Most of it. He added a ceiling paint can and yes, he painted the ceiling white with that. And we live in the Chicago, Illinois Metropolitan Area.
Its been 14 years since we had any painting done, and it was $200 for
1 or 2 rooms then. I know about inflation, but still seemed high, hence the post. It took him more than one day also....and he was over estimate by about $100.
As for the flamer. I could come back at you with a bunch of swear words, etc., for jumping to conclusions and being a donkey's behind yourself. Oh, what the heck...I swear too WHEN ITS CALLED FOR ---YOU ASSHOLE!!!! But you're not really worth the time.
So... to the others who replied...thank you for your time and your candor. Maybe the info I have provided now will help someone give me some positive feedback.
It depends. Since he spent more than a day, figure 2 days @ $325.day. Since he likely has to waste a day's work estimating and selling to get a day's work, each day pays about $160./day. Since more than 1/3 of each paid $ goes to taxes, insurance, etc., figure $100./ day. If he was skilled and you are reasonably assured of a job that will last (unlike an amateur job that could peel next year), consider yourself to have paid a fair price for a fair job. Remember, anyone who is hired then has to worry about future lawsuits and problem customers, so the price, overall, is reasonable.
Those overhead costs are not free. The alternative is do it yourself, save the estimating and selling costs, sacrifice the skill and experience, risk the paint peeling in a year, and buy without recourse if it turns out to be a disaster job.
I forgot to add that the painter DID move the furniture himself and one reason we didn't do it ourselves was we have cats in the home and its a small home and we were concerned about an accidental spillage of paint or something while we would be doing the work. With a stanger in the house, the cats all stay in hiding anyway.
Another reason for hiring a contractor was the clean-up.
And again...I never said the painter didn't earn his money and I'm not comparing it to an amateur job by myself or anyone else. I just feel I paid a lot more than necessary, and was hoping to get a very unscientific idea of what some other people recently paid for one room without a lot of fancy ornate trim, but with some minor repair work to the walls (no major cracks though).
Sounds like he did a good job. It may be a tad high, but if you figure $325 for a day, minus , truck, insurance, and other overhead he is making a good living, but will not be in the top ten billionaires category. Ed
For a 12 x 11 foot room $650 is extremely high priced. You said he used three coats. If he was using latex over latex and the new color was close to the same color or shade he would only need one coat and two at the most for one thing. Moving the furniture could add a little more but in one room I bet thta was less an hour of work so it shouldn't have upped the price but maybe $50 at the very most. I have worked with a lot of sub contractors including painters and I have done quite a bit of painting myself. For three coats (if he even needed to do that), plus furniture moving a fair price would be around $300 to $350 at the most right now. Hon, make sure you shop around before you hire subs from now on OK? write me and ask if you wish also. I have been in GC and Engineering most of my life and I am 45 now. I do not mind Hon.
For a room that size, with you providing the paint, $650 sounds a tad on the high side to me. On the other hand, you live in the Chicago Metro area so you're in a higher priced market. The fact that he went into two days is also an important factor.
Offhand, I would expect to pay around $350-$450 for a room that size here if it took 2 days of work. Up there I would figure it to go closer to $500-$600. Figure $325 a day is roughly $40/hour -- that's not terribly unreasonable. I'm curious why it took 2 days to complete the job though -- maybe it was the 3 coats, maybe the fill-in work, both.... Did he give a specific reason? The 2nd day of labor is likely a major factor in the final ticket and depending on the amount of fill-in work (repair work) that may be perfectly reasonable.
In all honesty, anything anyone on this group might say is pure conjecture -- without seeing the room and all it's difficult to get any closer than a ballpark figure. To get a better idea, the easy solution is to just call around to a few local painters in your area and ask them for a rough estimate. Some will give it over the phone -- just tell them the size of the room, the number and size of windows & closets, etc.. I typically do this before planning a project that will involve contractors, just to get a rough idea of where I'm looking in costs.
In the end, I wouldn't sweat it -- you had a professional job done, it looks good and serves the purpose. Even at $650 you weren't rooked -- now if there was another digit in that number, THEN I'd say you have a problem. :)
I didn't post to be insulting... I merely pointed out that the painter I am using is painting a VERY large room (15x36) for $500, a price he quoted after he looked at the room, determined that there is 4 picture windows and a ton of stained woodwork to cut around. This is a very good price for the size and amount of work (I hate painting and would pay double to get that job done, and yes I can paint!) I'm merely relaying what the painter said, and edited some of the painters obscenities. Fact of the matter, blind estimates are absurd.
Thank you. You confirmed what I thought, but did so in a much nicer way than some others. Time is money and being extremely short on time, I decided that paying for the job would be less of a headache than doing it myself. And I STILL believe that. However, I believed the job would cost something between $300-400...not peanuts, but not a lot---though its a lot of money for me anyway.
My wife chose this person because he did some other work for us and she thought it was good, high quality work and I thought that was very high too. Not because I'm a cheapskate, but because it seemed high...period.
I am not a penny-pincher, and do not believe in going with the cheapest ...especially when its a small percentage of the price. I wasn't trying to save $100 or $200 even. If I was charged $650 and an average cost for a similar room was something in the neighborhood of about $450-550, I would NOT be unhappy. I was merely trying to find out average cost, no matter how much a guess it would be. Next time I'll call friends and let them rake me over the coals in their own manner, rather than put up with the brutality in this group.
I was merely concerned that I paid 2 or 3 times what it should have cost. To me...it should have cost between $200-400. From that level, $650 is quite a jump. Course the first estimate was around $550. That's not that far from $400, so I didn't like it, but I let my wife go with it since she had confidence in this person's work and that was/is important to me. But!!!! $650 is a long way from $400 and an even longer way from $200, and so I'm sitting here with a severe case of buyer's remorse and with no recourse ----other than to not use this contractor again if I think he's high.
He actually took 2 and 1/2 days to complete the job. Slow and methodical and thorough? Or just slow? In the end, I paid 3 times what my low estimate of the cost was and 50% more than my high estimate. Admittedly my estimates were based on old data and not much experiece, which is why I came here now...for the next time and for maybe some re-assurance that I got more value than it feels like right now.
The thing is, if he is NOT too high, or there is good reason for his high rate, then I would like to know that too. I don't know when we'll need more work done, but at these rates, I will have to become a slum-landlord to my own family...not fixing or upgrading anything until its absolutely necessary.
Oh...by the way....I was merely disappointed in some of the more brutal posts, but understand now that there are probably some painters IN the group and they are probably concerned ---understandably so-- that quoting a lower price here would lower the price people woule expect to pay to them for their work. Maybe a bit paranoid, maybe not. But I understand that now. I THOUGHT I was talking to some knowledgeable consumers only. I was not trying to influence the going rate for paint jobs.
As for the flaming and my retaliatory remarks.... they were aimed only at one person....Mark Ransley. Who now appears to have slinked away after making an ASS out of himself, not the others in this group.
To everyone but him, whether your answers were supportive or not, thank you for replying. And to Candice especially. Thank you for saying much the same as the others, but in a much more civil/diplomatic way.
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