thanks for the honest story! keep at it! just dont tile over stuff your not happy with again, your knocking yourself down etc
i started out as a tiler and decorator. i was trained by BAl and my first job took far too long but it was a good job and i got paid. i then did a few normal old kitchens etc etc and things were going well. i made about 7 grand in then last 5 months of 2007 (my first 5 months of tiling/decorating).
I then broke my leg really badly in Jan 08 and couldnt work for 6 months. I lost my good reliable sources or work and it went down hill from there. ok i did a few great jobs but people seemed to want to pay me less at the end of the job etc. the credit crunch then came and i really struggled, i nearly ended up getting divorced because my wife couldnt handle the stress.
i also had some bad luck like on one job, a plumber accused me of destroying a bath, a £170 tap snapped off when i tocuhed it with my hand and the plumbers mate left plaster all over the bath and i got the blame! he even threatend to take me to court but fortunately i had moved house :hurray:.... so i had had ENOUGH and packed it in and fortunately got a job as a decorator and am on **** pay but oh well.
Since packing it in i have had a heck of a lot of calls from companies asking me to do more work for them! one of them is from a builder who i laid 53m2 of travertine for.
my main error of my ways was that i packed in the decorating business to focus on tiling just when tiling work dried up. if i had kept doing both i could of chosen to only do good tilign jobs and i wouldnt be where i am now
i know i made more money than sean but thats not what matters at the start, what matters is that he's improving and getting there! id rather be in his shoes
so the moral of the storey: dont brake a limb when things are going right