problem with doing work yourself is I find myself in pubs / hotels / mates houses comparing the work. I wouldn’t be happy with most finishes I see.

Agreed, whilst no expert DIYer myself, I endlessly look at the finish in restaurants / pubs and think even I would have done a better job. I suspect commercial premises just want it done quick and OK ish, some kid is just going to vomit / crap / crayon all over it, so why pay for a decent finish.

Bad tiles https://imgur.com/a/Eq37wOA

Who from stw left this workmanship, zoom in to see how bad it is

Surely the folk who can afford bespoke, hand made furniture do appreciate what’s gone into making it, otherwise you’d have no customers. The rest of us, who aren’t customers, don’t think Ikea shit is just as good, we simply can’t afford the quality stuff.

Well, not always it would seem. Level of wealth has no bearing on what you value I think.

Also, bespoke doesn’t immediately mean megabucks either. There are plenty of ways of bringing costs down but of course, it does cost more than Ikea, but then Ikea don’t do built-in stuff.

Also, there are different levels of bespoke and different costs charged, some craftsmen may only charge £10/hour others £100. The end product might not even be that different.

I used a decorator once who charged something ridiculous like £6/hour. I tried to persuade him it was stupidly low but he wouldn’t charge more out of principle. Anyway, he wasn’t amazing but should have been charging a lot more as I didn’t see how he could make a living charging minimum wage when he had to run a van*, etc.

*Clapped out estate which was off the road for a few days whilst he sourced a reconditioned exhaust to repair it with.

Redmex are you saying someone on this thread did that awful tiling job!? I say that looks about the skill level of my 4 year old….

That decorator chap would have charged more if he had to pay for his swanky new transit (another sign to expect a huge quote)

Some trades people are great others aren’t! I don’t understand the comments about not getting paid for sending invoices, tax returns, tool maintenance etc. Surely these are all costs factored into the hourly/daily rate?

Most people simply want a tradesman to turn up when they say they are going to. Then give a price without being chased for said price. Then turn up to do job at agreed time, or if they can’t at least let you know they are late.

Trades people are great and usually good fun and valued amongst those who need them /are prepared to pay for them

A lot of brainy creative types get into cabinet making, enjoying workshop conditions where you are (by and large) in control of the whole process and can give attention to all the detail, make templates for every part of the process so nothing is left to chance. Very few want to be joiners and carpenters where you’re working round whole sets of variables yet having to work really quickly to minimise disruption. The finished product is often a compromise and there is a real skill in working out customer’s expectations and coming up with a product that will be within budget.
Problem is, the joiner is in high demand and the cabinetmaker isn’t. Folk want something made to fit their space but don’t have huge wadges of cash spare.
it is quite possible to make and install an unpainted fitted mdf wardrobe for the same cost as buying IKEA and paying someone to install it. Allow a bit more for doing the design, yes but it shouldn’t be four times the cost, that’s taking the piss!
I work around 45 hours a week, do estimating and designing during the evening, charge £30/hour yet have never cleared much more than £25k before tax in a year; I guess I do like my holidays though.
Have barely had an idle week in 34 years of self employment…actually I would quite like customers to *** off and give me some peace. Haha!

Gosforth gadgie has just done an update on his original video (follow-up is very interesting too, where he goes through some of the feedback he gets)

Talking of ‘MDF Domino monkeys’ (!) I guess you must also have seen:

I can generally make a passable attempt at most things myself (except plastering). What I find disappointing is if I end up paying for a poorer job than I could have done myself.

I did freelance work for a few years at ~£35 / hour. I found out later I should have been charging 5-10 times that. I would never have had the nerve to ask for that though.

A lot of brainy creative types get into cabinet making

Do people of average intelligence who can work to other people’s designs get into it too?

Depends, sometimes people’s designs are not well thought through. Sometimes they want to stand next to you and tell you how to do your job when they really have no real idea about the knock on effects of “just do it like this”.

it is quite possible to make and install an unpainted fitted mdf wardrobe for the same cost as buying IKEA and paying someone to install it. Allow a bit more for doing the design, yes but it shouldn’t be four times the cost, that’s taking the piss!

It’s not though is it. Firstly, Ikea don’t make fitted furniture, only freestanding, so anything you bought would need to be added to in a way that it could be fitted into place. So for a start it’d have to be conveniently the right size for the intended location with the right proportion of space each side to allow for scribes etc, it might need a plinth to level it as floors are rarely level, and obviously all of that additional stuff would want to match the finish of the main Ikea piece, be that wood veneer or painted.

I’ve no idea what a wardrobe costs on average from Ikea but for example the other day I bought a single sheet of 12mm oak veneered plywood 8×4′ and it cost me about £30. Of course I had to drive 30 miles to Birmingham to pick it up too. Also, it is only veneered on one side and so the components I was making, I had to veneer the other side myself. All that takes a long time. I also had to buy a roll of oak iron on edging which once I’d cut all the components, had to individually prep each edge, iron on the edging, carefully pare it back to the surface and sand to finish. That’s 12mm ply. A wardrobe fit would most likely use 18mm for the various bits to add.

This was just for a few drawers going into a narrowboat. If I had to do all of that to match an off the shelf Ikea wardrobe that I was modifying to make it look like a fitted piece, well, you can imagine… Oh, and not to mention that the Ikea wardrobe would be lacquered, and so I’ve got to organise that too, most often with a third party sprayer, in another town, which I have to deliver everything to and wait a week, then go and collect…

So in summary, no you can’t get near Ikea prices but also, it’s apples and oranges really as you can’t buy off the shelf fitted stuff from Ikea.

Mass-produced fitted stuff I suppose is the realm of people like Sharps. Now I don’t know how they go about what they do, but I imagine it might be a bit like kitchens where you have a series of standard units which are configured to get near to filling the space with enough room for scribing.. I don’t know, and I’ve forgotten my point now, suffice to say, a lot goes into built in furniture.

As mentioned above, cabinetmaking is more specialist. It’s not that often I get asked to make really unique pieces. Built in stuff tends to be the bread and butter, but it comes along once in a while.

I certainly need to be more proactive in pursuing the right market but I’m still relatively new to self employment. I’m also far less adept at the business side. In fact, I’d say the projects I enjoy the most are the ones where I’m doing it for nothing. Not great for business 😂

A friend asked me yesterday how much it’d be to make her 6 year old a wobble board to improve his core strength and balance, so I knocked one up for nothing in an hour or so. I love to help people and solve problems I guess. 😊

Put your wife’s phone through the business

Target the areas with the lawyers and doctors and try increasing your rate

Now the quotes I get become clearer….since spending all my money to move to a nicer area of town…

Kayak, you’ve clearly got a skills set and offer a service which has real value; can you be more discerning in targeting potential customers?
Time is money so…offer initial consultation/discussion (time limited) FoC; after that, stage payments after retainer to secure your services to be offset against final account.
Are you sufficiently confident to do that – yet?
Can you build relationships with architects/designers as they are good at finding the right clients and want reliable partners to deliver what they’re selling; if you can crack that, you’re off and running.

In a similar vein, I noticed my front wheel was out of true on Sunday. I’m doing a 30 mile race next Sunday, so would like it to be fixed.
I can do it myself, and can do a good job. However, it’s dark and cold when I get home. And, basically, I CBA to do it.
So I took it to a local bike shop. Dropped off at 10am Monday morning, he said come back around 5pm, and it’ll be ready.
£12.
I insisted he took £20, as it was worth it for me for him to do it.

He’s got a skill that he needs to charge more for.

Also, I get this at least once a week, I travel around a lot for work, I carry a cup, and have decaf tea. Greggs (and many other roadside cafes) dont do decaff, I ask if they’ll use my teabag, they supply the hot water and milk.
It is regular for them to say no charge for the water/milk.
What they are not seeing is that the water/milk/tea is the smallest part of their costs.
It’s the service, rather than the product that they are selling us.
But, they dont see it, and have saved me probably £100 this year.

Other difficulties are people ‘time’ expectations.
I will get a query, the customer is given a quote. Sometimes they want the job straight away, the fabric is brought to me and I can give a decent time scale.
Other times I’m booked in to make for a show home. The fabric doesn’t arrive on time and then it’s a stupid mad rush to try and finish the job. Not easy when it’s your own hand that is doing the work. Fingers can’t move any faster.
Then I get the odd time when a customer is desperate to get their order (maybe they’ve moved house and a young child needs something up at the window) finished. I push them a head of the queue, then the customer doesn’t turn up for weeks. Very odd.

Payment can be a bit of a worry for crafts/ trades people. We’re constantly needing to replenish our stock. This of course is difficult when a customer doesn’t pay you on collection their order (which if in a shop would be the case). This luckily very rarely happens to me, however I know it happens to others. Also with a made to measure bespoke order the customer can’t take it back.

Fingers can’t move any faster.

You can only do,
what you can do,
with one pair of hands.

Just read the first and last 3 threads … will read the rest later but this is how it works in the far east.

Labour/skills time cost = mention this in the far east and you are likely to be out of work.

So this is how they work … don’t ask me how they make a living but it is how it is.

Option 1. Customers provide materials etc -> the craft people provide labour/skills and will normally quote as much as the customers are willing to pay for. Here the labour/skills time is emphasised.

Option 2. Craft people provide all -> Labour/skills(time) will normally NOT mention as they are included in the whole service. Normally if compare to option 1 the labour/skills time will be much lower. The craft people labour/skills time is recovered through mark up of the materials (materials supplier(s) provides craft people with special price due to good business relationship etc) with a little labour/skills time. In a way they make up their labour/skills time by materials mark up.

Most people in the far east will go for option 2.

That is why things can be cheaper in the far east because labour cost is “not” really included.

Notice that if you are in the far east you don’t hear labour cost that often?

You can only do,
what you can do,
with one pair of hands.

Wouldn’t a craftsman normally have at least one apprentice/assistant? Someone else to do the donkey work/less critical stuff while you get on with earning the $$$

(same basic principle applies to running ANY business tbh)

Wouldn’t a craftsman normally have at least one apprentice/assistant? Someone else to do the donkey work/less critical stuff

I think when you are meticulous with your work, ‘donkey work’ isn’t really a thing. Sanding for instance, a total bore, but on the other hand it’s incredibly easy to ruin a piece with cack-handed sanding. Rounding everything, knocking off crisp lines, sanding through 0.6mm thick wood veneers.

Nah, most craftspeople want to own the whole process. 😊

I made a kitchen island recently. Made it really well but got it painted by someone else as I don’t paint myself. To be honest, the attention to detail isn’t there and there are several areas which have let the job down and I feel responsible for that. Hopefully it’ll be sorted though.