Thinking of starting part time

I wonder if you guys can help me out.

My friend and I plan to make some extra money by painting and decorating. We both have full-time jobs (I work in sales, my friend as a forklift truck driver). We would carry out these jobs evenings and weekends.

We are both in our thirties and have experience DIY'ing our own homes. I don't wish to degrade any professional by saying we could do the a job just as well, but although we would be alot slower, the work would still be to a high quality.

The question i have is this. I just wondered what you guys think? Is this a feezable option? Would it work? I mean to start with we would be a lot slower than a pro, however we also don't have the overheads. Theres lots of positves and negitives.

I'm not naive enough to think this will be all hunky-doory from day one, and know i need to do a lot more market research, but hey, thats why i'm here.

Are you reading this laughing out load, or is it worth a shot?

Any help would be great.

Thanks, Jimmer.
(Nice forum, by the way, I've learn't loads already)

Nope, am not laughing. Ya got to start somewhere. This thing that ya need to learn a trade from young is an old idea i think. Maybe best thing to do is go to a Painter & Decorating coarse at an local college, then go from there. Then you will have some certificates. Any advice ya need i am sure the Decorators would be glad to help. Ask away.

You're gonna find it almost impossible to work for someone in the evenings. Customers just want you in and out - not coming by every night for 2 weeks.

gcol said:

You're gonna find it almost impossible to work for someone in the evenings. Customers just want you in and out - not coming by every night for 2 weeks.

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Yeah, i did think about this. How about weekends? Lots of tradesman work saturdays anyway. Is this an option?

Also, just thinking out load, (and i appreciate this question is "how long is a peice of string), but how long do you usually spend on a property? Is the average job 8 hours, or 40 hours? What i'm asking is, does small jobs pay-the-way just as well as big ones? For instance, would it be worth our while doing small jobs over weekends?

The trouble with that is that if you need anything (materials or tools) you might find that the shops are closed. Obviously this isn't a problem if you use B&Q. But you'll probably find that the best prices are at stores that aren't open all weekend.

Small jobs can be very profitable for the amount of time you put in - you need to price them quite high to take account of organising other work around them. By all means do a 5 hour job but just make sure you charge the customer for a full day or you'll lose out. To try and find a fill in job for a few hours isn't always possible to organise at short notice. I've found that if you explain the situation to the customer they often understand where you're coming from and agree to the price.

You're gonna have to be careful to only tackle jobs that you're sure you can finish. What happens when you strip off some old blown vinyl and find that the walls are unsuitable for the paper the customer has chosen? The time it takes for the customer to go and sort out some new paper will put you back and may mean that you can't finish.

Don't let me put you off - if you want to do it, go for it. I'm just pointing out things you need to take into consideration.

Small jobs could quite possibly be profitable for you and you may find that there are more small jobs about because those who do P&D as a full time business are more likely to turn down the small jobs in favour of the large ones.

As gcol points out though, it can be tricky timing jobs around each other. If you're doing small jobs and have two or three booked into a day then any delay in the first job will have a knock on effect and you'll be letting clients down.

Little jobs you can do in a weekend, but people dont want you coming in every evening for two weeks, its thier time, they work too, and most have families, the last thing they want is matey coming in about 5, as they are sorting out thier kids dinners etc, they want to relax.

Have you thought of trying something else?

Loads of elderly want little jobs doing,or single people who cant DIY, like shelves putting up, or a curtain rail, puting a shower rail and curtain on in the bathroom, a washer on a tap, that sort of thing.
Even a bit of tidying up thier garden, taken stuff to the dump, theres loads of little jobs you could offer to do