£1,000–£1,500 to paint a medium lounge?! Is this normal?

Ive done my own

Buy materials

Clear room

Put down plastic sheet

Sugar soap walls & wipe surfaces

Paint ceiling

Cut in walls

Paint walls

Paint skirting boards

Put furniture back

It is labour intensive

Yeah, that’s ’fuck off’ pricing. I’m oop north but decorator charges £120 a day and he’d have it done in a day, possibly two if it needed several coats. That wouldn’t include materials though.

I’m in London. I’m paying £500 for my lounge to be done, and he does help me move heavy stuff.

Not a company, and doing it at a weekend.

@BePeachNewt 😂 Probably not incorrect.

I voted YABU as I’ve done a few bits of home DIY as well as laying flooring and putting up wall papers - not just a quick lick of paint over some scuff marks. The workmen have various costs to consider: materials such as paint, masking tape, their tools, fuel to get to you etc. You pay for their experience as well.

How much do you value your time and how good are you at jobs like this? Is it worth the hassle doing this entirely yourself and staring at patchy walls afterwards? Whatever you do - do not get a silk finish type of paint. Good luck!!

Because in the days of social media, tradespeople can't win. I see it all the time on my local Facebook groups - tradespeople get slagged off if they don't answer their phone, if they don't return a voicemail, if they decline to come out to look at a job. They'll give a quote for a job they don't need or want just to end the interaction.

I often paint myself but even I am laughing at these a teen aged could do it and it can be done in an hour,

I can honestly say fhe finish a professional gets is no way comparable to a teen or someone slapping it up in an hour, and skirts and ceiling take time,

id say it’s prob 3 days work, likely 2-3 coats and the skirts and ceiling on top.

Are you having a laugh?

What about prep, filling, sanding down, then priming, 2 coats of gloss etc!

Yes, and this is why I haven't had my hallway done and tried to DIY it, despite it needing a platform for which there is no space... I had my dining room and living room done about 5 years ago and they were £750 each, with me supplying the paint both times and 2 people (father and son) working. We are in a Victorian semi and the walls were fine but the ceiling in the dining room did have a couple of hairline cracks that needed filling. I can only imagine it has gone up by £250+ in 5 years. I don't know many people working in normal jobs not in London who can afford it any more anyway!

We do our own decorating. I love hanging wallpaper and don't mind painting. But that price doesn't surprise me. Tradesmen are usually very expensive.

My excellent decorator in Cambridgeshire charges £230/day. Most of his days are prep as our house is old and crumbly and covered in dodgy layers accumulated over years. Actual painting takes no more than 20% of his time I'd say. So if here'd isn't a lot of prep I wouldn't expect a room like you describe to take more than 2-3 days. So I guess it depends on how much prep there is - a light sand, or stripping off 200 years worth of wallpaper and trowelling plaster into the collapsing bits.

Paint is very costly. I have a decorator who charges £150 a day - I supply paint and spend think £180 on paint. I was shocked

he was very good and quick and did playroom kitchen bedroom bathroom in 3 days

so he’s yours is a lot tho I know my man is cheap - some quoted £250 a day

You must be breathing in too many lead paint fumes if you can't get your head round the simple fact that many people don't want to paint their own houses, can't paint their own houses or can afford to pay someone else.

I am a freelancer and my day rate averages £400. A painter costs £200 a day. On what planet would it make sense for me to paint my own house?

Sure, king sized bed and massive wardrobes are a bit harder to move though.

I had sitting room, bedroom, box room and hall done for £1,000 six months ago, including doors, skirting and ceilings. Took two of them two days. The place was totally empty though, and the other quotes were a lot more. He also wasn't very nice, so maybe that's why he was both available at short notice and cheap! Did do a great job though. I'm South Bucks.

Aye, right. The minimally skilled, untrained teenager could do it, but it would be a really crappy job and look shit.

I did that recently... I found the key was as @NimbleTaupeTiger said, doing all the prep first as advised by you tube. I also bought the right equipment on Amazon. (we only had ancient encrusted old brushes in the garage and that was why paintwork looked awful)
Depending on the size of the room... and the time you have...You could break it down into sections and just move stuff out of the way to prep and paint one section at a time.
The eventual painting is actually the easy part.
Using a roller on a stick was a godsend as I'm short
But the time invested in You Tube to see how to do it and what equipment to use was 100 per cent worth it.

But I can see how you might want someone in to do it if you have DC running about.. unless you can cordon off the lounge and camp out in another room until its finished.

Whether I DIY or pay someone the furniture gets moved to the middle of the room and covered with dust sheets.

My view is that I CBA to do my own so I pay someone. I could do it but I don't want to. Therefore you are paying for their time and skill. You've had several quotes so that tells you it's not unreasonable. It's absolutely true that some traders quote high when they don't want the work and guess what happens if you say yes? They don't turn up.

Last year I had my hall and stairs done plus a toilet. There are four single doors and two sets of double doors all brown wood to be painted white, plus the banisters. £1250.
So those quotes seem high but I don't know where you live. I live somewhere very cheap.

How can you even know this without seeing the room? Does it need an undercoat which takes a full 24s to dry plus drying time between top coats? Is there a lot of prep? Sanding, filling, taping up. There’s no way to tell, so the assumption that it would take one person, 8 hours is way off!

I’m a shoddy decorator but I refuse to pay those sort of prices. It’s just painting. I’ve done all the rooms in my house more than once. I don’t rush it up I can do a bedroom over a weekend.

What did you do with all your belongings and furniture? That's the tricky bit for me, not the actual painting but getting everything ready for decorating.

I'm in north London and paid £1k (5 x £200 day rate) for a similar sized room. It needed a lot of prep (light colour over dark, lots of alcoves, lots of little bits to fill in and bay window / blind complications to manage. Included all woodwork and ceiling. I was really pleased - it was relatively cheap and the quality is very high.

But like others say - if it's that simple a job, do it yourself.

Painter and decorator that we use in the north of England has a £200 day rate. I wouldn't expect that job to take longer than 2 days (we provide paint)

Really. I thought that was a good price in that area for 9 rooms and hall/landing, walls, ceilings, woodwork, windows etc.

Im just started prepping a room as I intended to save myself some money by decorating it myself. It’ll take me the 3 weekends plus some evenings and I cannot be arsed. I’m gonna book a decorator. Round where I live that’ll be about £460 for 2 days work with materials on top. It’s worth it for the expertise and time saved.