Timber restoration at discounted rates!

[Toby Newell]

Hi

To those of you who have read my articles (some on here) and have known me from the start, to everyone else, hi, ask around.

Long story short as non essential service and with Brexit? worries (I assume, how ironic) this year has been the worst start my colleagues and I can remember and as such I am in danger of closing down the business.

I do have a considerable international job later in the summer but right now things are very difficult, if anyone requires timber restoration / finishing or knows anyone who needs such please let me know, macro economics dictates my prices will be lower!

I would prefer to close down the business rather than join the race to the bottom in the industry but ideally, do neither. Unlike most operatives I do genuinely have an interest in timber, art, design and old buildings and am reasonably close to the apex in skills and knowledge in my field. I have worked for Rob and many people from the forum and in many of the UK's top buildings including hundreds of listed properties.

Regards

Toby

 

[Abi Cott]

Oooh I wish, but I'm far too small scale for your majestic skills.

 

[Toby Newell]

Abi, that is a very odd turn of phrase, and untrue unless your work is less than one day in nature and you are more than 100 miles from London.

I don't think majestic is my usp anyway, it's more that I say what I do.

 

[Abi Cott]

I'm both small scale and considerably more that 100 miles from London, but I've read pretty much every post you've made on this forum (I'm a bit nuts when it comes to research) I've learnt one hell of a lot and will be attempting to apply some of it. Your work is awesome and you should stop being so modest.

 

[Toby Newell]

Oh well that's a shame.

And thank you but it's only practice. I am really just a very enthusiastic amateur with quite a bit of practice.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I too have read your posts, and have learned much from your contributions. I hope you are able to carry on with the business. How many days work would you need to do to make a job in Birmingham worthwhile?

 

[Feltwell]

Toby, very sorry to see that post. You've been extremely helpful to me on this forum before and freely given some great advice, which I followed with excellent results. I've been very impressed with the work you've done that I've seen pictures of - so I'd say to anyone reading this, if you do want work doing, Toby is your man for a quality job.

Like PP, my question is if you'd consider going further afield - potentially in conjunction with a job for PP as I'm only about an hour further on from him - PM on it's way.......

 

[Toby Newell]

Thanks all. I think I alluded to the problem previously, I rely on web leads as I work on low volume high quality and for example the highest ranking floor sanding website bod has a shop, a factory (I have met him) and 20 floor sanding websites with false addresses and fake video testimonials. Speaking to some of his contractors who wanted to work for me they have to lie and cut corners, like applying less coats than they say to make a living. This bod and many like it (it's easy to spot the dishonest guys if you read carefully) spend thousands per month of web advertising because they turn over several hundred £100k per year, effectively it's like the mob have moved in as these guys sell finish and materials from other countries, hire cheap labour, artificially lower the rates, trick people and crush the high quality people out of the market.

Floor S anding E xperts have 19 websites with false addresses, you can work out the rest, 10 years ago I was on page one and received several hundred enquiries per year, now I am demoted to page 10+ and they bid so much for google ad words (I tried already) you can easily pay up to £3.6k pa (c. £10 pday) with no meaningful leads. And yes, in lieu of possible helpful replies I realise paying someone to increase my google ranking and do general SEO is probably my only resort and yes I should of done this sooner, I am not crying, just because bad people are abusing the system is no excuse for inaction on my part, actually if anyone knows a skilled and trustworthy web designer / seo marketer I would be very happy to chat to them. I have my old customers but one of my problems is that my work lasts for decades so I only ever get to quote for new work so this isn't as productive as one might think, I think that's true irony right there. I am around 2 to 4 times cheaper than the top bods who try to approximate what I do (V ictorian W oodworks, La ssco etc) so I am 100% confident the trade is still viable, it's just marketing.

Obviously it's sad for me but relatively speaking it's a lot sadder for the craft as a whole which is on it's last legs. It's akin to fake news as they have artificially reduced the median price by over 50% over the last ten years, which is impossible and makes people like me look artificially expensive.

The sad truth is these guys lie, quote low, charge a hefty deposit and don't care if they get chucked off the job, often they end up being the same price if not more than I charge. Unlike the often poor and abused workers who usually have to pay for their own machines and materials but give a 50% cut to the owner I make much less than the owners of these sites, in fact I am under half the price of a British Gas installer or plumber, who rarely call to your house with £20K of equipment in tow. Skills and experience, diligence and honesty do not come into it, that's just a bonus really.

I am conscious to be as efficient and good value for money as possible, it may be arrogance or indeed ignorance but I know a little about most trades and businesses in the construction and maintenance sector and I really don't think I have honestly found anyone appreciably better value for money, I actually prefer to charge my customers as little as possible.

Anyone wanting any work should pm me or do a google search with my name plus wood!

I dislike social media but have deleted my old facebook profile and set up a new business one just so I can post pictures, instagram isn't any good to me as I prefer to post from my desktop, hopefully I can put up a few more pictures, the ones on my website are old, I have thousands more some of them quite nice if you love wood.

 

[Toby Newell]

@MikeG please don't shoot me if this works! I didn't want to post to your thread and steal the thunder from your bathroom, just thought I would try and see if this is a viable way to show photos from some of my projects which could be helpful in future if anyone is asking for advice.

And also, obviously you were very adamant that you never sanded your floor, only scraped and washed it! I just wanted to show that sanding isn't necessarily bad, its how you do it that counts...

https://www.facebook.com/newellwoodworks.co.uk/?modal=admin_todo_tour

PS how do I get pictures to show up here? Very reliable forum technically speaking but displaying images could be easier I always thought! Should I get dropbox?

 

[Abi Cott]

Try this

https://ctrlq.org/images/


and use the little picture icon at the top of the reply box. The Url goes inbetween the img bits.

 

[88v8]

Yes, third-party hosting and copy/paste the url, or upload where it says Attachments at the bottom of the Post A Reply screen in which case the maximum size is 256kb.

Ivor

PS how about Gloucestershire, I never did get round to shining up my ceiling beams. And an elm door could be improved.

 

[Toby Newell]

A man told me I need to get on Social media, I'm not that old, it's just that, meh. The man is my web man so I did it. At least I can post 'albums'. For all those who read 'sanding' as evil, that depends. Sanding machines aren't evil. People are. Da Vinci would of had a Festool.

PM me Ivor. I think you want to be selective with your beams pick the nicest big ones and maybe only do one or two faces so you can see the contrast with the original texture, if they are old they should look similar to the oak in my latest posts (Napoleonic French oak)

 

[MikeG]

@MikeG please don't shoot me if this works! I didn't want to post to your thread and steal the thunder from your bathroom, just thought I would try and see if this is a viable way to show photos from some of my projects which could be helpful in future if anyone is asking for advice.

And also, obviously you were very adamant that you never sanded your floor, only scraped and washed it! I just wanted to show that sanding isn't necessarily bad, its how you do it that counts...........

No problem at all, Toby, and those are beautiful photos you link too (can't say the same about your hands!! ).

I've made furniture for a living, so know a little about sanding and wood finishing. I'm quite happy to sand in the right circumstances. It's just that in restoring this old place I'm quite keen to keep as much of the timber as unchanged as possible.

 

[Toby Newell]

that's sizeist.

is that a thing?

abrasive paper consists of thousands of mini scrapers...

the hand or machine isn't the tool, it's the abrasive grain.

and anyway. it's a different type of pain to the scraping, which helps. insert smiley here.

 

[Abi Cott]

You do need a web presence of some description. If I received a personal recommendation there is an 80% chance I would look you up on Google. If you have to pick between Facebook and a website, choose a good website, but both is better. Put a landline telephone number on the website, this is getting a bit old fashioned but might still hold sway with certain customers.

 

[steveb]

at a slight, but related tangent, do you fit new or replacement floors? Is that something that you could diversify into - supply, lay and finish a new floor, or does that end up in an even more crowded race to the bottom?

 

[Toby Newell]

I do everything Steve.

Restore, repair, instal from joists upwards.

It's purely marketing, I used to be page 1 now page 10+

And yes it's super crowded with trash. I can't actually remember the last time I saw a new (last 30 years) floor laid correctly. I see only one or two a year. 3M, 6M doesn't matter the value of the house all terribly badly laid floors.

It's hard to get a toe in if you do the job correctly which is why I need my site to be highly visible to people who want an old fashioned proper job. As in those circumstances I am relatively cheap.

Just two minor examples.

What floor installers fix down and repair the subfloor boards? Level them? Use plywood instead of MDF or OSB? They just don't. So the floors insulate and move and eventually crack up and break the tongues.

That's before we get into lack of expansion gaps.

95% of the entire market is predicated on lies, cheap labour and cut corners the only way to compete is to do the same. This has mostly been in the last 10 - 12 years.

If you want to reach the 5% who are willing to pay for a good job, where I am comparatively very cheap you have to market.

 

[MikeG]

I found this in a barn a few days ago. It will be in my bathroom, serving its original purpose (washstand) next week:

It's 100% walnut:

Absolutely riddled with woodworm. Much as I'd love to restore it properly, I can see this ending up covered in chalk paint (my wife hasn't seen it yet, so I can't be sure).

 

[Toby Newell]

Is this a taunt?

And surely it should be green?

 

[MikeG]

No, not a taunt at all. I was just interested in any comments you might have on it. One thing I can say with certainty is that this, whilst latterly green, will not be green after I've finished with it.