You folks might find this amusing.
We need a bit of redcoration done inthe house following some building work so we asked my brother in law (who is a painter and decorator but lives too far away to be able to do the job) how much it would be likely to cost. He said he would charge about £200 to £300 for the job, and he is not at the cheap end of the scale. Its some fairly basic repainting and some painting of new plaster. A days work, maybe two half days as they might need to leave some stuff to dry.
So..... we got three painters out to give us an estimate and their prices ranged from £600 to £900.
[punchline] I phoned my brother in law back and he says it would have been £200 if I had parked the Mercs round the corner when they came!