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estimate

4/26/20       
Barkat

I am new in this wood furniture finishing/refinishing business. I got following jobs .
a. 35'/2' Stair rail , customer needs refinishing touchups repair, not stripping.

b. 5xround tables tops 32" needs to be refinished.
c. 10 Chairs needs to touchups and repair nicks and chip.
All of them are Stains and lacquer.

Kindly send me roughly estimate.

With regards.

4/26/20       #2: estimate ...
rich c.

How did you get the jobs without knowing what to charge? No one can tell you what to charge; we have no idea what your overhead is, or where you are located. Lacquer is a horrible finish for a table top these days, poor resistance to water and alcohol, and not the best wear resistance.

4/27/20       #3: estimate ...
mastercabman

Mmmmmm
Maybe you should figure this out yourself
How exactly can we offer an idea on how much to charge?
For example,the hand rail,is that just the hand rail by itself or does it have pickets,ballister?
When you say "repair"
Are you talking about small cracks/dents? Or damages that needs new wood or epoxy filler/gluing?
Do you have any employees?or do you work solo?
The only people that can give an estimate is someone with experience in that matter
The only suggestion that I have for you is determine how long is going to take to do the job x $ per hour/day + materials

4/27/20       #4: estimate ...
Robert Member

If I was you, I wood just hang a dart board on the wall and start heaving darts at it. If where they land looks good, write up the quote.

4/28/20       #5: estimate ...
rescraft

Tree fiddy. :)

4/28/20       #6: estimate ...
Jim Clark  Member

Only you can estimate how many hours this will take you.
So estimate material costs and figure out how much per hour it's worth to you.
Sometimes it's easier to strip something
than trying to repair and match existing.

5/8/20       #7: estimate ...
Matt V Member

Website: http://www.silverlake-designs.com

I see you aren't getting much advice on this topic. As someone introducing yourself as someone pretty new to finish work - you have taken on a lot - so understand the group members' sarcasm. But I will see if I can help you with your approach to estimating. It's hard work and requires a lot of desk/computer modeling time to get it right.

As someone who has done a lot of estimating in my career from multi-million dollar software development projects down to a chair leg that is broken - the approach I am going to share with you is the same. And over time, you'll be able to do it faster and skip steps with more experience.

If you know what to do (hopefully, you or someone else working with you does), outline all the steps involved in doing the work. When I say steps, I am talking about the atomic level of work (i.e., Sand chair - 120, Sand Chair - 180, Vacuum and clean chair),

Here are some steps you might have for the chair rail. 1) strip/removing finish (which could including several steps which has effort), 2) cleaning, 3) make repairs (each repair needs to be broken down into what will be required to complete the repair - every little thing including running out to get materials and doing research), 4) sand through all the schedules (80, 120, 180) final sanding (tool and best if you figure out all the items that need to be hand sanded, which will be a lot with a stair rail), 5) finishing prep (taping, etc.), finishing break each of these out and some of this items will occur multiple times so outline each one separately (color, sealers, glazing, toning, and final topcoats ).

That's a high-level work plan, and for each one of the work steps (try to get the steps down to an atomic level - as small as you can at first), then put an effort number in minutes/hours per ou step. Be realistic about the number of minutes/hours, but don't worry about putting a price per hour to that number yet - you need to outline the effort first. Customers don't realize how long the prep and sanding take, and you need to be able to relay the level of effort with numbers (if required).

I recommend that you use a spreadsheet (free option is using Google Sheets) to create this list and level of effort per step.

I have several models that I use to help me estimate work, and if you reach out to me directly, I don't mind showing you what I do.

In summary, estimating can make or break your business. I have done many projects where I underestimated the work effort, and after working for 1.00/hr on a few projects, you quickly figure out how to improve your estimates or go out of business.

Also, for finishing and furniture repair work, stay away from competitive pricing. It's not worth competing with handymen, painters, or factory-type finish shops. If you are good at what you do and can interact with the customer directly to explain your work (with emotion and passion), you can get paid for the quality you are delivering.


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