How to charge for work?

How to charge for work depends on whether or not you actually want to do the work or instead just want the profit from the work.

In general however, you can figure on about $50/hour for your time and a well equipped shop.  If you were a pro shop it would be twice that these days.  I've usually found that charging a realistic market rate discourages most people wanting some work done.

If you want to do the work, then you can discount that rate.  There are plenty of reasons you might want to do this, none of them necessarily bad ones.  Having a reason helps you push through and get the work done when you are regretting under charging for your efforts.

Your deal with the customer will be either a single contract price or a time-and-materials arrangement. If you want to quote them a fixed contract price (firm or ballpark) add up all the material costs -- including waste allowances, shipping, handling, etc. -- and add some percentage for your profit. Figure out your labor investment by clearly thinking through every step from start to finish -- including material handling time, design, layout, production, delivery and installation -- and then estimating actual man hours to do the job. I suggest reality-checking your estimate by changing your perspective, e.g., how many man-days or man-weeks it will realistically take you to deliver the finished product and how do you value those criteria? In your contract, however formal it is, make sure the scope of work is clearly defined, and that it is understood that changes will be billed on a time-and-materials basis. 

The amount you charge per hour (or day or week) is something only you can figure out, based on how badly you want the work (vs what the customer expects to pay). If you were in business doing this, you'd be factoring in all the indirect costs of your doing business, on top of what you want to take home at the end of the day. If you're semi-retired and aren't paying down equipment or worried about utilities, etc., just figure out how much your time is worth to you personally and charge accordingly. Again, perspective counts. How many competitors are there and what would *they* charge for this job? Is there something unique about your offer that can command a higher rate, independent of actual hours invested? This is the "whatever-the-market-will-bear" approach, and worth a look. If you can't identify your expected costs with any certainty, give them a ballpark time-and-materials estimate, making sure you're not going to lose money in the event of something unforeseen.

On another note, I'd be careful about using MDF for bookcases; it is probably your weakest choice for stiffness. In fact, any choice of materials should be knowingly engineered to resist deflection under uniform load for the spans involved. The last thing you want is a callback.

As for painting, you can either leave it to the customer to hire their own painter, or you can get a price from a painter and add it to your estimate, with a markup for your trouble.

That's my take in a nutshell. Hope it helps.
Ellis

Thanks all.  I will be verifying the material of there current builtin bookcases.  They are painted, so trying to figure out what material they are made of is going to be the hard part.  They have shelf pin holes, but they have an insert in them, so I can't see the material.  I really don't want to use MDF or MDO if that is still a thing.  I am hoping a good smooth plywood will work.  As for  painting them, I have a few folks around that paint cabinets to refer them to.   

Thanks Again