Latest TV unit job pre assembly ( Finished and installed )

Unbelievable  work.  Wish I had that talent to build something like that.

love the look on the house keepers face, she must be saying to herself, "How in the He?? I'am going to keep that thing clean"
 
Wayne,

Thank you so much for keeping your promise and posting these pics.  Even if I cannot do this level of work I can at least live vicariously though you and the other skilled workworkers that post here.

I am not surprised that your client paid you so quickly.  It's not even mine and I want to pay you!

Neill
 
Great work and nice design! I would prefer sleeker/thinner pulls, but otherwise the proportions of your design looks pretty good to me. I wasn't sure at first, in the unfinished stage, but seeing it in it's final condition and location, I feel it works very well as a composition. Now your client needs to get to work on the rest of the room so it's worthy of your work!

Did you consider using thick glass shelves instead of the wooden ones? Seems like you could have leveraged more from your accent lighting if the shelves were transparent instead of opaque. As it is, the accent lighting is limited to the top shelf. In any case, I do like your design as is.  [thumbs up]
 
If you dont mind was this unit for a customer ion south Africa? and how much did you charge? if you dont feel like posting this information I under stand.
 
darbo said:
Great work and nice design! I would prefer sleeker/thinner pulls, but otherwise the proportions of your design looks pretty good to me. I wasn't sure at first, in the unfinished stage, but seeing it in it's final condition and location, I feel it works very well as a composition. Now your client needs to get to work on the rest of the room so it's worthy of your work!

Did you consider using thick glass shelves instead of the wooden ones? Seems like you could have leveraged more from your accent lighting if the shelves were transparent instead of opaque. As it is, the accent lighting is limited to the top shelf. In any case, I do like your design as is.  [thumbs up]
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There are some things i would have done differently if this was my unit, most likely i would have fitted more glass to it. But the client had a design from another unit that she really loved so i tried to stay as true to her wishes as possible.
 
jamesclerie said:
If you dont mind was this unit for a customer ion south Africa? and how much did you charge? if you dont feel like posting this information I under stand.
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Hi James,

Yes the unit was for someone here in SA. I dont mind posting my pricing, I charged her R21 250.00, Which i think is a pretty good price considering the size of the unit. The unit she wanted me to base my design on was half the size and cost R15 000.00 from a store.
 
1851 GBP, i think she should be happy, seems quite cheap to me for the size of unit.  As long as you made a profit then all is good  [smile]

Woodguy.
 
woodguy7 said:
1851 GBP, i think she should be happy, seems quite cheap to me for the size of unit.  As long as you made a profit then all is good  [smile]

Woodguy.
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Yip i made enough to keep me going for the month and have something put aside for my FOGtainer wish list.
 
How can you make a living on that!

I would charge at least 8000.00 to 10,000.00 in Chicago to hand make that. I have charged far more than 3000.00 for much less than what you show here.

The last cabinet job I did was a run of cabinets about 6 feet long x 8 feet high and the client gladly paid 12,000.00.

If I can't charge 4 to 5 times the material(in general) there is no way I can make enough money to justify a business(possibly the European type material and construction is the difference in cost?) I just can't see the material costing much less than 1/2 what you charged.

Great job on the cabinet and hopefully you made some money on it.  :)
 
woodguy7 said:
Greg, i think it works out to be about 2,852.37 US dollars

Woodguy
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The conversion calculator that I used was $2,905. So for simplicity I just rounded it up. But who knows, as the exchange rates float and your millage may very.
 
nickao said:
How can you make a living on that!

I would charge at least 8000.00 to 10,000.00 in Chicago to hand make that. I have charged far more than 3000.00 for much less than what you show here.

The last cabinet job I did was a run of cabinets about 6 feet long x 8 feet high and the client gladly paid 12,000.00.

If I can't charge 4 to 5 times the material(in general) there is no way I can make enough money to justify a business(possibly the European type material and construction is the difference in cost?) I just can't see the material costing much less than 1/2 what you charged.

Great job on the cabinet and hopefully you made some money on it.  :)
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Wow really ??? 4 to 5 times the material for just 3 weeks work ??? If i could get away with charging that amount i would be a very rich man by now  [cool] From what I have heard from alot of other cabinet makers they tend to charge only about 70% of the materials ( depending on the complexity of the job ). I charge no less then 80% of materials. Maybe im just the sucker here and selling myself short. [eek]

Anyone else want to chip in on there pricing process ???
 
I wish I could turn out work as good as that - and do CAD renderings as well.

Here in france I couldn't hope to produce something like that for your price.  I expect labour and materials are much cheaper where you are, but it is often a question of "what the market will stand"  I went to see someone recently who had seen my work and wanted me to build dressing room cupboards.  After talking to them for a while and realising how much they wanted to pay I suggested they should try IKEA.  So as not to appear insulting I even offered to assemble the units for them.  I can barely buy the raw materials for the price of their finished units.

I love your design - is it OK to steal it?
Regards,
Richard
 
waynelang2001 said:
Wow really ??? 4 to 5 times the material for just 3 weeks work ??? If i could get away with charging that amount i would be a very rich man by now

Anyone else want to chip in on there pricing process ???
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I'm a hobbyist so my pricing is almost non existent (I do get a few crumbs thrown at me when I help someone out  [laughing]) , but the average craftsman here charges 35 euro per hour. So for 3 weeks work that would be 3 x 40 x 35 = 4200 euro. And then add about a good 1000 euros for materials and you're up to 5200 for this project.
 
I don't price jobs on a percentage of the materials.  I try to estimate time which i have workshop rate (higher than general joinery) & factor in electric, consumables, wear & tear on tools ect.  Then add a bit extra because jobs always seem to take longer than you think.

Wayne, you did work out how many hours it took you to build.  Did you also include the hours to survey the job & do the renderings.  Deduct all materials & consumables from the fee you were paid & divide whats left by your amount of hours to see what you got paid per hour.  It is probably a lot less than you think it is.  I just feel you could have got a lot more for it.

Don't sell yourself short, Woodguy.
 
I couldn't begin to make it for that price.  I'm probably more in line with Nick's pricing.  Early you said you had about 135 hours in the project, before install.  Rounding up to 150, means you made $20 an hour on that project (assuming the material was free).  At that rate, I'd barely be covering my overhead.  

Figure out what your indirect costs (overhead) are for the year, add that to how much you want to make for the year.  Divide by the number of weeks you want to work a year, then by the number of billable hours you think you'll have each week.  That gives you a shop rate, estimate how long you think your project will take, multiply it by your shop rate and add your direct costs and any profit you want to make.

And ditto with that Ikea analogy.  I'm not buying thousands of units of plywood at a time (more like 5-10 sheets), I can barely get the material for the cost that they're selling a finished product for.  I've steered people that way many times.
 
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