The Problem With DIY Upholstery

[SHHR]

first of all I do admire a person who wants to try and tackle a project for him/herself, I admire even more a person who admits they're in over their head and seek out a professional. With that said, many DIYers have no idea what's involved in a project and the time the professional has invested in learning the trade.
It's been said to be a "master" of a subject at least 10,000 hrs have been invested in hands on work. I do resent when customers come in that has a "limited" knowledge of the trade I practice and begin to tell me that job should be easy, not take too long, or tell me upfront what the job should cost them.
I used to freely give advice to people who wanted to learn, I had one guy who would ask me advice years ago on custom painting and I was more than glad to help. I found out later he was starting to paint out of his home garage and was bad mouthing me to people.
I agree that there seem to be too many self training programs out there on any subject, DIY shows have been blamed here too, but what gets me are these shows on TV that shows Cars being built in a week or two. I saw one once where the particular car was being readied for a major show and was just lacking interior. The shop that took it on knocked out a full on custom leather interior in just shy of two days (at least the editing dept made it look that way) people see that too and expect us to wave our non-existent magic wands to work miracles.
Kyle

[alge]

I got a bit of stick from the Old guys at my trade association for revealing a few tricks of the trade in my book (not that many but enough of the guys i grew up respecting to care what they said, including the guy who taught the guy who taught the guy who gave me my first break, kind of my Uphol. Great Grandmaster lol.) but i still hold by the fact that the problem with good upholstery is - it doesn't sing or dance it just does the job its supposed to do -,  so how will the public ever get to know how blooming hard it can be to do a clean job? If a DIYer picks up a book or vid or anything like that and has a go and finds out how tough it is then they at least develop some sense of respect for those who can do a good job. One review i read from someone who bought the book said it wasn't as easy as the title suggested - on balance i'm not as upset by that as my publisher probably wishes.

The T.V stuff is usually misleading and often endorses the impression that upholstery is a last minute thing and a good suite can be done in a couple of days..... utter B/s. the tv companies think they are doing you a favour too and tend to offer peanuts for input...or is that just the BBC?

So what we want is an informed public that will defer to the experience they are paying you for, who has deep limitless pockets and is as loyal as a hound.... If anyone knows them can they please forward their address.  :D

[sofadoc]

Good points, panelrodder! Before we upholsterers condemn upholstery DIY'ers, we should bear in mind that WE are DIY'ers at SOMETHING ourselves. Great example with the elk head logo.
We also get peeved at customers that are ONLY looking for the cheapest price, and are willing to settle for lesser quality in an effort to get it. Yet we do the same thing when we go shopping (my shop has more than it's share of Harbor Freight crap).
I'd like to think that I'm patient with DIY'ers. I try to help them (to a point), and more often than not, I end up finishing the job when they give up on it.