Decorating customer updates Two days of prep looks like nothing. Unless they can see it.
Most of a good decorating job is the part nobody notices — filling, sanding, lining, masking — and a customer who comes home mid-job sees a room that looks worse than when you started. A link with photos of the prep, a close-up of the colour on the wall and a line about what’s next makes the slow part of the job look like what it is: the reason the finish is good.
Free to use. Nothing for your customer to install.
What your customer sees
See a full example job page →A typical job for decorators, one update at a time
What your customer reads on their link as the work goes on, oldest first. Each line is a photo or a sentence posted from your phone.
Day 1, 8am
Dust sheets down and everything masked. The hall’s out of use until Thursday.
Day 1, 4pm
Cracks filled and sanded, woodwork keyed. Lining paper on the ceiling.
Day 2, 3pm
First coat on the walls. Colour looks darker wet — it will lift as it dries.
Day 3, 2pm
Second coat done, glossing the spindles now. Keep the dog off the stairs tonight.
Day 4, 11am
Touch-ups done in daylight, sheets up and hoovered through.
Why show the prep?
Because it is most of the time on the invoice and none of what the customer sees at the end. Photos of the filled cracks, the sanded woodwork and the lining paper, posted on the day, answer “what took so long?” before anyone asks it.
Can the customer check a colour before the second coat?
Post a photo of the first coat on the wall with a note, in daylight if you can. Your customer sees it on their phone at work and can ring you before you carry on, rather than walking in to a finished room in a shade they didn’t picture.
Does it work for a room at a time over several weeks?
Yes. The link stays the same for the whole job, so every room’s photos and notes collect on one page in order. Move the job along as you go — Booked, On site, Complete — and when it’s done, start the next job from this customer’s last one and their details are filled in for you.
What if I find damp or a crack that needs more than filler?
Photograph it before you cover anything and post it with a line about what you think it is. A blown patch of plaster or a stain coming back through the ceiling is easier to agree a plan for when the customer has seen it, and the photo is still on their page if the problem shows again later.
Can I tell them which rooms are out of use?
Post it as an update at the start of each day: which room is sheeted up, when the paint will be dry enough to walk past, and whether the stairs can be used tonight. It saves the knock on the door at five o’clock, and anyone in the house can read it from the same link.
What does it cost?
Nothing. How’s the Job is free to use for decorators, with no card needed to sign up, and always free for your customer, who opens the link in their phone’s browser with no app and no account. It does one thing — show your customer how the job is going — so it sits alongside whatever you use for quotes and invoices. How it compares.