Scary Stories!!!

Halloween is a favourite in this house, theres magic in the air, you just don’t know what’s round the corner and people like sharing scary stories.

Our houses’ scary story is about tiling rather than decorating. The tiles in our kitchen were at such a slant you felt like you were walking downhill if you looked at them when walking into the house. They had completely vanished in the W.C, or were they ever really there at all?!?!?! Ours was a new build so we got the tilers back in for a redo, and at this point realised the truth in the saying ‘a bad tradesman always blames their tools’. It wasn’t just the workmanship, there was no professionalism, no communication, the work was even messier than their appearance. A proper nightmare! Especially after the joy of buying our first home together.

Unfortunately this is a story we hear again and again. Your property, be it bought or rented, old or new, personal, or a place of business is an investment. It’s a reflection of you and it’s somewhere you will spend most of your time. We at Ardent spend 50% of our time going to look at prospective jobs, writing up quotes and sending them out. Possibly 30% of this work is not fruitful, at first…….

When customers tell us they are going elsewhere the usual reasons are that we are more expensive than expected, and decided to just get a freshen up, they got a cheaper quote elsewhere or have found someone that can do it straight away. It’s a competitive market out there and painters are in demand. However as with shoes, you only get what you pay for. Cheaper shoes might last you a couple of nights out before they are past their best, or they might look good but kill your feet, bare this in mind when instructing someone to work in your space, a place where your eyes will rest, all of the time! The flip side of this is that customers do come back, saying they’ve been let down, and can we help? Or new customers saying the last decorator done a terrible job and can we fix it? Again this might mean there’s extra work to be done to make a job good, which might have a monetary implication. A more common situation is when a decorator does not complete a job. You have to ask the question, why not? Did they realise they priced too cheaply to get the job and know they are working at a loss?

The moral behind this horror story is to invest your well earned cash where it’s most important to you. Make sure you have the best professional for your job, and if someone can start tomorrow in a none urgent situation, you should ask yourself, why aren’t they busy?? Your surroundings are worth the investment, not your nightmares………

We can rectify your horror stories and stop your decorative nightmares!

Contact us for advice on wall coverings, paints and palettes on -info@ardentdecorating.com

Happy Halloween!!

The painters wife xxx