Lydia72

I've spent the last week painting; walls, ceiling, coving....very bored of it now.
My friend is paying someone £450 to come and do her decorating.

I've just read on another forum someone paying £45 a week to have their dog walked. Then there's having cleaners, gardeners, someone to do the ironing...

I think I'd have to be seriously wealthy to pay for something I could do myself (because I'm tight as well as poor ).
I'm not that good on tall ladders so don't mind having a window cleaner, although the last one doesn't seem to have been that good either because he fell off.

What would you/ do you pay someone else to do? Or would you rather keep the money and do it yourself?

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

Only thing we have done is the windows every 2 weeks £3.50.

Cook our own food, take our own *****, will bring up our own child(s), clean our own home, decorated ourselves too.

Unless you have a busy lifestyle and loadsamoneh seems a bit lazy to pay out good money for something which you can reap the benefits of. Obviously there are limits; I wouldn't carry out my own dentistry for example

zs_phil

iTrader: (1)

DIY = do it yourself

Im tight too never get anyone in only electrics and gas

£45 to walk a dog tell him ill do it for £40

yellowvanman

All depends on how much spare time you have and how you value your time.

If I can earn more than it costs me, then i'd rather earn normally and at least keep the difference, than give up my time.

Jamie

Avoid him ^

zip106

I've never let anyone else do my decorating.

It's a piece of p!ss to do.

Lydia72

Yeah that is why my friend would rather pay, they have demanding jobs and just want to relax when they get in.

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

you got the painters in ?

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I agree entirely. I actually quite like my job, so I would rather work an extra 5 hours at a higher rate of pay and then pay someone else 6+ hrs to do something I don't want to do.

Seems madness to pay someone if you have that option open to you. Of course the extra work has to be there, and you have to be able to earn more than you are paying.

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

I am a perfectionist, bordering on OCD when it comes to the detail. I have spent the past month over weekends, preparing my hallway, stairs and landing area for paining. It is a considerable area, it that it has taken 15L of white paint per coat to provide a good base coat. The bulk of the effort has been in preparatory work. No matter who did this work I would find something wrong with it, the only way to ensure there are no complaints was to do it myself.

I have 5 cars, every one of those gets serviced by me.

Will tackle anything DIY except plastering or plumbing. I intend to take a course in basic domestic plumbing sometime soon. If I can make a good job of it I will do it myself rather than pay someone. May take me three times as long, but as I spend my day sat on my **** at work, I quite enjoy filling my weekends with something a bit more physically demanding.

I often prefer to spend the money on good quality tools for the job and learn how to use them, rather than spend the money on buying in services.

Clarebabes

I've got a cleaner as I hate cleaning and would rather enjoy life. I don't pay for decorators, but major work I would. If you can afford it, pay it. I don't see a problem with that.

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

I'm a DIY fan
It's actually stress free for me working with my hands rather then sit getting grief on the phone and making decisions which I do 40 hours a week

I also like heaping up the money in the bank I save

zip106

I can/could afford to pay for decorators but I'd rather do it myself.

BlkKnight

As someone else said

Painting & Basic decorating I'll do. Anything involving Gas or serious elec / water someone else can do.

Coffin Dodger

I'll tackle most stuff except gas which is a bit risky However I do wonder sometimes when I've spent an entire weekend tackling some particular project if I'd have been better off paying someone. Both me and the missus have demanding jobs often involving working extra hours as and when so look forward to weekends, holidays, etc. We earn a pretty good wage as a result so realistically might be better off leaving the mundane stuff to someone else.

That said, like another poster on here, I want the end result to be as near to perfect as possible and if I'm doing it myself I won't cut corners even on the hidden stuff that some professionals seem to think is acceptable. It has ultimately given me a great deal of pleasure sorting out the **** ups that the previous owner (a builder allegedly!) of our house has made.

A good example of when it was the right time to call in the pros was that our boundary had no fencing when we moved in. I did a lot of the prep work, i.e. clearing the area etc., but getting in experts to erect over 100ft of the stuff was great. They did in two days what would have taken me probably three weekends and it wouldn't have been as good. Money well spent.

EddScott

Can't stand painting. I find it particularly boring. DIY just isn't my thing TBH.

It's odd really because I'll spend all day tinkering with the Jeep and can spend hours in the loft working on my railway but the house just doesn't do it for me.

I'll do little things but big jobs like the kitchen re-fit, I paid two lads to do it for me. We are having the stairs replaced and hardwood flooring in March and although I could probably do the flooring I don't feel comfortable doing the stairs.

Making things and some repairs I'm happy to do, painting I really can't stand.

I wouldn't mind a cleaner though.

JackClark

I'm about to decorate my living room, I'm thinking I'll strip the room and wash the walls then pay someone to do the prep work, I'll do the bulk of the painting, then pay someone to do the finishing.

That's a win all round right?

Coffin Dodger

If you can find someone who will do that. Most professional decorators would rather be doing the job from start to finish rather than just bits and pieces. If you can find a good local handyman type then you might be in luck?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Its all about how tight/lazy/attentive you are

I confess to paying a gardener/odd job guy to tidy up outside round the house, as I just don't have time to keep on top of things. I still do the easy stuff like mowing lawns and washing cars. Its just the back breaking/long winded stuff I can't deal with epcially if its cold/raining.

Normally the really crappy stuff, like digging up dead trees/shrubs/weeds and last week he volunteered to jet wash the block pavers...I thought why not, its a bitch of a job and takes two days solid to do.

What I don't understand is people who pay someone to do simple easy suff; like mow 10 square metres of grass. FFS, a good petrol mower is £100. Sharpen the blade every 3months and its a doddle. Same with vacuuming; running a upright vacuum over every few days is nothing....I sacked our works cleaner because thats all she did and even then she couldn't vacuum properly. She also seemed to think the hoover bag is a tardis So spent weeks vacuuming with a cleaner with zero section

Even worse is those who regularly pay tradesmen to do stuff that are obviously are crap at what they do. Next door uses a builder/jack of all trades. And evertime they have works done, he's doing it: windows, drive, flat roof. Fine, but everthing he has done has been bodged or just looks rubbish...FFS he used a whacker plate to lay a stone chipping drive, now it has 1ft deep ruts from the cars and he can't open the garage door due to the mound of shifted chippings. Yet knowingthe drive is crap, they STILL call him round to do more stuff

Whereas me, who told a painter to **** off because he left a load of brush marks on all the interior timberwork when he decorated the interior, and obviously didn't rub it down nor did he fix any chips or defects (because he started painting almost straight away). No excuse, a painter should leave a nice smooth gloss finish with no brush marks and knows for it to last without flaking, it needs to be rubbed down and any defects fixed prior to paint.

I guess some people have no attention to detail. Sadly I do; Its almost obsessive. Hence why almost every DIY task take 3 time longer. Especially painting: rub down, fill, rub down, paint, rub down to remove brush marks, paint, then before its dry a very thin layer of spirits on any brush marks to to give a smooth glass finish, if not; rub down, paint again - Can you imagine a decorator doing that, or what he'd charge if he did? .

urban

iTrader: (1)

At home we pay a cleaner and someone else that does the ironing.

hodgy0_2

i assumed this was a thread of a sexual nature

Lydia72

Why, do you normally pay for that?

Jamescsti

Wouldn't pay anyone to decorate for me, it's boring but it's not difficult at all, I've decorated every room in my house, fitted my own bathroom and tiled it all.
I have a brother in law who is a qualified electrician so he helps with that.
Only thing I wouldn't do is anything gas related.

I pay a window cleaner £5 every 2 weeks

zip106

As they say - if you can pi$$, you can paint.
4 year apprenticeship? Pah!

Spoon

I assume we have someone come in as things get done and I don't do them. All this is left to the butler to organise though.

dpb

Nearly anyone can use a roller

Spoon

Yes, that is what I said so we ordered a Bentley instead!

dpb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Za...311_1116cc.jpg


Is this yours Spoon ?

Spoon

No, wrong colour.

hodgy0_2

no I have that functionality "on premise"