Before ordering my paints, I had arranged to meet with 阿旺, a part-time/freelance painter who was recommended to me by the previous owners of our house, to get a painting quote. I've seen his work at the previous owners' new place and it looked pretty good to my layman eyes. I had already decided to go with the previous owner's suggestion of buying the paints myself and simply paying for labour cost - I can use premium paints and still save money by doing that. So my intention was to have the paints delivered and ready within that week and then have him paint last weekend. Prior to meeting him, I actually got a quote from E&K (a painting company which I found on Carousell) to get a general idea of the market rate for such labour cost.
Prepared to have him do the painting if he quoted me $100 below E&K's rates (since this was just a sideline for him), I was in for a rude shock when he told me a number that was more than double of what I was expecting - $550 is the price for E&K to do the full job, complete with regular Nippon paint! I was just telling the bf the weekend before that that if it wasn't too much of a difference from E&K's quote, then I would probably pay that extra bit more for the 'pros' to do it. Admittedly, there were a lot of drilled holes in our walls (leftovers from the previous owners) so there was a fair amount of repair required but the quote still seemed a bit excessive to me considering the previous owners paid him the exact same price for their 5-room flat. Sorry, my name is not Robert. Obviously, he was now out of the running. I didn't tell him that immediately (of course) - all I said was that I'll need to think about it since that's out of my budget and will let him know.
The next day had me surfing Carousell again for another painting quote. I then came upon Teo, who quoted me $250. He said they have no problems mending a few holes but depending on the volume/severity, they may have to charge extra. He couldn't give me a firm number and wasn't able to drop by for a no-obligations quote, asking that I take some photos of the areas that required patching up instead. I left the conversation at that cuz by then, the bf's mum had managed to get me a quote from Ah Leong (her friend's husband) and she convinced me to go with his services since his price was still within market rate and he is someone she knows.
List of the quotes I got for painting (labour cost only):
1) E&K Global Pte Ltd - $350 (inclusive of wall repair such as hole filling, no touch-ups)
2) 阿旺 - $550 (inclusive of complete wall repair and touch-ups)
3) Teo - $250 (inclusive of minor wall repair)
4) Ah Leong - $350 (inclusive of complete wall repair and touch-ups)
Carousell sure proved more useful than I imagine! Everyone should try it, haha.
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