The missus and I got in a handyman last week to come put up some wall shelves and curtain blinds at our new place. [ I used to do this shit myself, but I'm getting too old/weak for this action macho stuff now. I tried once recently and my arms ached all through the night. Not funny. ]
We bought almost everything from Ikea. Please note that Ikea Hong Kong offers assembly services and wall-mounting for certain items only. They do not mount wall shelves and curtain blinds for you, even if you offer to pay them [which is what I did]. If I remember correctly, Ikea Singapore does mount almost anything for you, and they charge you by the number of holes they have to drill for you. But I could be wrong about this, because back then I used to do all the handyman work around the house myself.
After making several calls, I settled on Victor because [a] he spoke very understandable English, and sounded knowledgeable i.e. not dodgy and [b] his HK$250/hr rate was pretty decent.
The man is a bit of artist, the way he does his work, and he’s very neat. He didn’t leave a pile of dust [unlike the 3 guys who came to mount my TV. Yes, it took 3 of them to do one small job. But it was free.]
Laid out paper to catch the drilling dust
He had some pretty neat tools. There’s one which he flashes over the wall surface – if it beeps it means there’s some metallic beam there or whatever, and probably wouldn’t be able to drill too deep. He bothered to check both sides of the wall he was drilling, also to see how thick it is so that it won’t come out on the other side.
I only managed to sneak a picture of one. I call it the Wall-E lookalike. He puts this thing on the shelf above my TV, and what it does is it beams out a thin red line to the wall opposite of it, so Victor is able to accurately mount another wall shelf there at the desired height. At least that’s what I think it was for.
Wall-E’s distant cousin
I might use this picture for my header now.
I wished I could’ve taken a picture of him, but he seemed a little shy. You can expect a stout, bespectacled fella.
The fee came up to a little over HK$1,000 for 4hrs+ of work, which is a pretty decent amount for so many hours of hard work. I liked the fact he cared about what he did and how he did it. I wouldn’t do all that work for anything less than HK$30,000 but that’s just me – arrogant, greedy and always thinking I’m underpaid ;-)
I ought to mention that I found him through GeoExpat and I’ve left a nice little review there.
The missus and I are very happy with his work and would recommend him to anyone. Be sure to tell him what you’d like done, so he’d know to bring the appropriate equipment. The man does practically everything, from wiring, plumbing, painting to packing & moving (locally).
Handyman
Victor Cheung – mobile number 91000520
[23 Aug 2008 - Update: Looks like the link to my little review, or rather the page that is, doesn't exist anymore. I don't know where it went or how to get it back. In any case, this blog post here pretty much sums it up.]
Tags: handyman
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