Customer finishing project?

[Jesse Busenitz]

How many of you get request from the customer to finish their project, and what's your opinion on letting them do it? I'm sure it depends on the person, but I'm just a little worried about what it will do to my reputation if someone sees a finish run or some major finish flaw on one of my projects.

[Roy Harding]

It depends upon what it is. If it's high-end stuff, then no - but then again, none of my high-end customers have made such a request. If it's "basic", low-skill stuff, then I'm more than happy to let them "have at".

[Judson Green]

My first kitchen cabinet client wanted to finish their own and to keep the price down I agreed, but it looked horrible and I'll not do that again.

[Peter Quinn]

This is a real concern. I can remember doing a kitchen at the last job, high profile client whose kitchen /remodel was scheduled to be in some home design magazine or other, we typically provided custom built in cabinets raw to be finished on site...by a professional, and we had a roster of suggestions for quality finishers. Makes a really nice job finished post install, lets you build a little different, more seamless. Anyway, the client (Dr. Something or other) and her boyfriend decide on a several hundered thousand dollar remodel that they can certainly paint with the best of them and thats where they are going to save money. We strongly urge them again to use a pro for the cabinets and do the walls/trim themselves if necessary. They politely tell us to bud out. So everything leaves the shop unfinished, sanded to 150G ready for paint, paint grade kitchen.

A few days later they come in with a sample door and lots of accusations. "Our" wood was soooo smooth, then they painted it...and it turned fuzzy like a peach.....so they just kept going, and it got worse....what did "You guys" do wrong they asked? I had seen a few cans of water based latex zinsers on site when we delivered, I asked what their finishing schedule was....sure enough, latex cover stain fast dry...oh...it was little thick so they thinned it with water too......Yes, they wanted to know what we had done wrong when sanding to cause their cabinets to fuzz up. Brilliant. The foreman was fairly diplomatic, the boyfriend kept insisting we had done something wrong...I was standing there and had personally made all the doors and panels.....I was a bit more direct. Told him finishing was a profession, just like medicine, I don't give the good doctor medical advice, I don't do my own surgeries at home on the kitchen table, and I don't pretend to know something about that which I actually know nothing. Finishing isn't brain surgery...but its not for newbies and novices either. The results they achieved were the direct result of them not listening to our advice and proceeding into something about which they knew little as if anything were within their reach.

End result, they were never really thrilled, always blamed us for their mistake, had to sand the entire kitchen and repaint. Kitchen looked great, the design was pretty much the work of our designer, I remember seeing the thing eventually in the magazine where the good doctor talked about how she had designed her own kitchen....some people have a problem with honesty, can't be honest with themselves, why bother being honest with others? So you wind up in a bad position. Nobody likes to turn down work, but you don't want angry clients, nor do you want your reputation sullied by their short comings. And its a pretty common phenomenon for clients to think that finishing is the easy DIY part, maybe they watch those TV shoes where some hack quickly slathers some muck on a built in as the camera pans out rapidly..."Just beautiful". The reality is we all know finishing is critical to the final aesthetics and a good finish is far from easy to achieve. So you are right to be concerned, proceed with caution.

[Jesse Busenitz]

I can't say my work qualifies as super high end work, but there is nothing worse than seeing your nice job get a slapped on finish, and then it's definitely not high end work.... I know people are trying to save money, and maybe they count their time as nothing. It just seems if you allow the customer to throw their "expertise" as Peter gave example, before the end result, there's too much room for them to all the sudden become dissatisfied how it turned out. I also should mention I'm just getting started by myself so a lot of my projects get viewed as examples/reveiws so I would really like to avoid any hiccups right now.

[Prashun Patel]

Cant you say yes if they tell you how theyre going to do it, and what risks there are and where your liability ends? I think you should keep engaged and fleshing out the terms and process. There may be a way to make everyone happy.

[Jesse Busenitz]

Cant you say yes if they tell you how theyre going to do it, and what risks there are and where your liability ends? I think you should keep engaged and fleshing out the terms and process. There may be a way to make everyone happy.

There's probably a place for it, and it depends on how desperate you are for the job. Personally I think it adds a lot of "extra" work to the job, but I guess it's not all about $$$.

[peter gagliardi]

This is a real concern. I can remember doing a kitchen at the last job, high profile client whose kitchen /remodel was scheduled to be in some home design magazine or other, we typically provided custom built in cabinets raw to be finished on site...by a professional, and we had a roster of suggestions for quality finishers. Makes a really nice job finished post install, lets you build a little different, more seamless. Anyway, the client (Dr. Something or other) and her boyfriend decide on a several hundered thousand dollar remodel that they can certainly paint with the best of them and thats where they are going to save money. We strongly urge them again to use a pro for the cabinets and do the walls/trim themselves if necessary. They politely tell us to bud out. So everything leaves the shop unfinished, sanded to 150G ready for paint, paint grade kitchen.

A few days later they come in with a sample door and lots of accusations. "Our" wood was soooo smooth, then they painted it...and it turned fuzzy like a peach.....so they just kept going, and it got worse....what did "You guys" do wrong they asked? I had seen a few cans of water based latex zinsers on site when we delivered, I asked what their finishing schedule was....sure enough, latex cover stain fast dry...oh...it was little thick so they thinned it with water too......Yes, they wanted to know what we had done wrong when sanding to cause their cabinets to fuzz up. Brilliant. The foreman was fairly diplomatic, the boyfriend kept insisting we had done something wrong...I was standing there and had personally made all the doors and panels.....I was a bit more direct. Told him finishing was a profession, just like medicine, I don't give the good doctor medical advice, I don't do my own surgeries at home on the kitchen table, and I don't pretend to know something about that which I actually know nothing. Finishing isn't brain surgery...but its not for newbies and novices either. The results they achieved were the direct result of them not listening to our advice and proceeding into something about which they knew little as if anything were within their reach.

End result, they were never really thrilled, always blamed us for their mistake, had to sand the entire kitchen and repaint. Kitchen looked great, the design was pretty much the work of our designer, I remember seeing the thing eventually in the magazine where the good doctor talked about how she had designed her own kitchen....some people have a problem with honesty, can't be honest with themselves, why bother being honest with others? So you wind up in a bad position. Nobody likes to turn down work, but you don't want angry clients, nor do you want your reputation sullied by their short comings. And its a pretty common phenomenon for clients to think that finishing is the easy DIY part, maybe they watch those TV shoes where some hack quickly slathers some muck on a built in as the camera pans out rapidly..."Just beautiful". The reality is we all know finishing is critical to the final aesthetics and a good finish is far from easy to achieve. So you are right to be concerned, proceed with caution.

Aw, c'mon Peter, tell us how you really feel!
I couldn't have said it better myself.
People that need to save money first, and want quality second have plenty of HD's and Lowe's to shop at.
Another reason we call ourselves "custom" shops.

[Peter Quinn]

Aw, c'mon Peter, tell us how you really feel!
I couldn't have said it better myself.
People that need to save money first, and want quality second have plenty of HD's and Lowe's to shop at.
Another reason we call ourselves "custom" shops.

Its not the only time I've seen it, just one example I'll never forget. I remember another that spend $45k on cabinets then hired her landscaper/mason/handyman to do the finishing.....that went well....... There is a perception among some that finishing is some how easy, or accessible, or the place to save money even by people that don't really need to, as if paying to have work finished was a waste of time. I see finishing as at least 40% of the labor on some projects, its no small part, and it takes years to learn, so most novices and clients have way less clue than they imagine.

There certainly may be clients at different levels that just don't have the resources to pay for finished work and are satisfied by their own results. I think it could work for Jesse, but there has to be very honest communication and a decent contract wouldn't hurt either. As far as using the work as your business card once a sale is made it becomes the property of the client and its at their discretion, you may be better served making some pieces that stay at your shop or home to act as your sales tools. I know thats easier said than done. Best you can expect with outgoing work is taking good pictures, and if the client is doing their own finishing, that may be a better option anyway.

[John Lankers]

IMO, if they need you to build it don't let them finish it. I built a small desk for a friend a few months back which he applied the finish on, I'm so glad my name isn't engraved in the surface .

[Jerry Wright]

My long past father, a shop teacher, taught me that "90% of the apparent quality of a piece comes from the last 10% of the effort". You know my vote

[Randy Red Bemont]

My long past father, a shop teacher, taught me that "90% of the apparent quality of a piece comes from the last 10% of the effort". You know my vote

I like that saying. Very true.

Red

[Jim German]

I think finishing is the hardest part of the job, and is the part of the job I always think about outsourcing to someone with more experience and skill.

I would not let someone else finish a project I had built. Rather than just flat out say that though, I would very slowly and methodically go over all the various steps that you are going to perform to finish the project. Try and highlight where your skill and equipment will come into play. If they still insist politely decline the work.

[Erik Loza]

I'm neither a cabinet maker nor a finishing expert (unless they want it by rattle-can, in which case I'm game...), so I'm going to give you the sales guy's answer. I would probably say "yes", for the reason that if you don't, there is surely someone else who will and the question then becomes whether or not you want the business.

That being said, I agree that it makes a lot more sense for you (the builder) to handle the finishing than to let the DIY'er do it so I might explain to the customer during the quotation process that you would be glad to install them, raw, if that's what they want but also reiterate that you are a professional and that because of this, you can guarantee top-notch results more quickly than they can and that by the time they bought all the supplies and chemicals to do it right, they could spend almost as much as they would with you, except that the results are not guaranteed. Ask them which makes more sense.

Also, and I may draw some heat for saying this, but why is it your concern after you install the cabinets? Assuming they were constructed and installed correctly and that is what the customer asked and paid for, why does it matter how they look after they paint or stain them? You provided the specified product and service, right? Satisfaction is 100% perception is and could you be confusing your perception with the perception of the person who actually buying your product? I visited a furniture show recently and there was a bench that was beautifully finished but very poorly constructed from a structural standpoint. It won a prize. In my mind, it should have won nothing, because there was no way a person could have sat upon it without collapsing it. But, I look at things from a structural standpoint. The judges probably looked at things from an artistic standpoint and because of this, made their decision based on that.

Maybe your customer does not care how the finish is? And maybe they never would really notice the difference between rattle-can lacquer and a good spray job. These are all our perceptions. But are they your customers perceptions? That's the real question.

Erik

[rudy de haas]

I'm neither a professional woodworker nor a hobbyist - but I can say that having the 12 year old help generally means that the work takes twice as long and I end up making excuses for how it came out. Not his fault tho', mine.