Question
I was reviewing my most successful jobs of the past year. Without a doubt, there are three jobs that stand out. We delivered all of these jobs either unfinished or primed only. They were put in very high end houses and very professionally painted in place by a painting crew. The finished product looked so good, I have a hard time calling those guys painters.
Do any of you actively sell to the high end of the market with unfinished cabinetry? Are there any sales strategies that you use to sell this way? We have always prefinished our cabinets in-house. Finishing has always been our main constraint as well as the most problematic area. We could easily double production with unfinished or primed only but we are not sure about the selling tactics and or pitfalls of doing business this way.
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From contributor G:
Finishers work onsite - and get well paid for it, too. If you don't want that part of the job, somebody else will get well paid for it. You might want to consider making an arrangement with such a crew, so you will know your work is in good hands.
Clears, and stained finishes are all done in house. A couple of times when our preferred painting contractor was unable to meet our schedule we had to hire painters that we were not familiar with.
1. You don’t have to worry as much about scratching the cabs during transport and install.
2. You can sand in joints, crown miters, and etc.
3. You get to see everything in its proper layout which helps if you are toning and/or shading. It just takes a lot more prep and you have to be good at spraying vertical surfaces. If you have that down the result is seamless. Again I say beware of hack painting contractors. You need someone who is an experienced cabinet finisher.
