Decorate Your Entire House for Under $2,000!
I love home decorating shows as much as the next person. I love to see how the designers transform dysfunctional spaces into beautiful, functional, inviting spaces. But as much as I like to watch these shows, I think they are somewhat misleading. Many of the shows claim they can transform your entire house for less than $2,000. At the end of the show they add up their receipts to prove their point. But have you ever noticed that they don’t include the cost of labor? They have an entire crew of people working on a house for several days and they never charge for labor–it’s too good to be true! Literally.
In the real world homeowners either have to do the work themselves, or hire someone to do it for them. Assuming you have hired someone, you are going to have to pay for labor. How much you will pay depends on a number of issues, such as: 1) how much preparation is needed to ensure the surface is ready for painting, 2) what type of paint are you planning to use to achieve the desired effect, 2) will the painter be able to do the job with one coat of paint, or will additional coats be needed to do the job right, and 4) is lead paint an issue?
A professional painter will be able to advise you on the options so that you can make an informed decision. If you’re selling your house and you aren’t concerned with how long the paint job lasts, perhaps one coat is good enough. But if you’re transforming your home so that you can live in it and enjoy it for years to come, perhaps a longer lasting finish is your goal. Decorating your house “on the cheap” may seem like a great idea, but if you have to repaint it next year because the paint job didn’t hold up, perhaps it’s not such a bargain after all. As coach John Wooden said, “if you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over.”