Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Painting Ourselves to Save Money: good idea or bad idea

[Anne Fleck (solianna]

Wow! I would strongly recommend against this. It will take at least 
twice as long as you think and you won't like the results. And it will 
cost more ultimately. Not to mention the frustration when someone drops 
a can of paint or doesn't show up as scheduled. We tried to do our own 
plantings to save money and although we got the plants in - eventually 
- we're dealing with bad spacing and dead plants 5 years out.

I do a lot of painting and I'm good at it. Right now I'm painting the 
interior of our common workroom - sealing, and top coating the concrete 
and drywall walls and the floor. Besides all the prep work, I'm letting 
the primer set for a couple of days before top-coating so it's really 
dry. This is a slop job (you'll have trim to work around) and it's 
still going to take 3-4 days to finish a 24'x28'x10' room. (I'm 
brushing, your professionals will spray).

Bite the bullet and save money elsewhere (bathroom fittings, sink 
gauge) where it's easy for folks to upgrade later. Enthusiasm doesn't 
always equate to quality or even completion.
Good luck,
Anne at Jackson Place
On Tuesday, October 24, 2006, at 06:12 AM, Steve Faber wrote:

> The bids have come back for our cohousing project.  We have asked our
> General Contractor to suggest some cost saving options.  One of the
> big items he suggested was to have the group complete the primer and
> base finish coat paint for the interiors of the units.  This is a 44k
> item if we opt to do it ourselves.  There are several individuals in
> the group that are gung ho about this option and are willing to
> organize the project.  The contractor is saying that he could give us
> a window of time where people could get in and get their unit
> painted.  This is obviously fraught with peril for individuals and
> the group in terms of possibly delaying construction or poor
> workmanship, but it is a big enough cost reduction that we need to
> seriously explore the possibility.
>
> Have any other cohousing groups done this?  What were the
> challenges?  Or if your group decided not to do something like this,
> why?  Any recommendations would be helpful...
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