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

@BePeachNewt 😂 Probably not incorrect.

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.

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.

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

Try asking local Handymen and see what their prices are

If you’ve had a few quotes all coming in at that price range then that is the going rate in your area. Trades usually price per job, not per hour so even if they can do it in a day, you are paying for their skills and experience. You could always DIY it?

Get on YouTube and watch some painting videos then crack on.

I do all my own decorating because I like it. You need a big protective sheet for the carpet, quality paint, rollers and brushes and frog tape. Then spend the money that you have saved on whatever you would like. I generally go for a handbag 🙂

We are having the whole house (12 rooms) painted walls and woodwork for £5200 including filling in cracks and materials.

We recently paid £750 in the East Midlands. That included expensive paint. Took him 2 days with full preparation. Tbh, we thought he was expensive but he did a brilliant job. No way would I pay what you'd been quoted.

But isn’t that what many that voted for Brexit wanted? Higher wages, because cheap labour had suppressed the incomes of those in manual / trade jobs for the benefit of the middle classes. Now that wages have gone up, services cost more because there’s fewer people. But that’s to the disadvantage of the middle classes. Which is why Labour has a Brexit problem…there are two elects of the party, diametrically opposed ;)

£40 an hour sounds expensive, but it’s not really. Knock off 20% for VAT and then another 15% to account for holidays and you’re at £28 an hour, out of which most decorators will have to factor in another 10% ‘unproductive’ or non chargeable hours for admin, quoting and sickness. So now you’re at £26 an hour, out of which you have to fund a van and equipment like ladders, platforms and protective sheeting. Maybe there’s £20 an hour left for the labour, the same as a cleaner.

Now decorating is one of the easier DIY tasks to do yourself, unlike plumbing or electrical work, so perhaps we go back to the 80s and ‘90s when people did use to do it themselves :)

No way would I let teenage kids loose on my house. I have to live with it. I know I wouldn’t do a good job so unless I could find someone who knows what they’re doing at a reasonable price I’m stuck with these walls for years. Another thing- radiators. In newer houses they can be pulled forward to paint the wall behind. Some decorators won’t do this and risk problems, and ask you to do it or get
plumbers to, which would add to cost and inconvenience. All these gadgets to go behind them aren’t very good, cling wrap is a fiddly pain, so you have to accept that the backs of the radiators will be spattered with paint, or just paint as far behind them as possible . I know they can’t be seen but it does annoy me.

This is so untrue. The prep work required to do a good job can easily take 2 days. And the skills/experience required to do a good job should be acknowledged in the price.

The skilled ones give more time, not less - but I'd ask them to specify what kind of prep they will do.

To add - I think there are wildly differing ideas of what a 'good job' means. I am very into interiors and restoration and know what a good job is because I have done it myself. I've also hired others to do so, with varying results - the quick ones were the shit ones.

Not everyone notices or cares about a good job, from an aesthetic perspective. But from a practical perspective, IME the room has to be re-done far more quickly when it's a shit job, so the costs are broadly the same over time.

But they're self employed, so their rate has to include unpaid holidays, pensions, insurance, van, tools, sick time off, overheads, etc. You can't compare an hourly rate of an employee whose employer also has the extra costs, against a s/e person who has to cover their costs out of their charges.

If there is hardly any prep work just do it yourself its one room! My lounge is in good nick no prep needed unless I find the odd thing to sand off lightly. I can get it done in a day, sofa goes in middle of room as does TV and TV stand small items I move out like the lamp.

I start 6am and first coat on walls and ceiling is done by 10am but its just me sand I don't use tape when Im cuttinf in smwhich means I go a bit slower than a pro. I use johnstones covaplus trade paint with prodec roller on an long pole. Prodec brush. Im also painting it the same colour, no feature walls etc.

Whilst walls are drying I go round do skirting I dont tape anything as I am used to painting carefully to edges. Use a paint guard so I dont get paint on carpet which saves so much time from having to put down tape.

Then break over lunch by 2pm (4hrs drying time on walls as recommended) then I do second coat on walls snd maybe ceiling if I think I need to. Skirting i dont bother cos usually one coat to refresh is fine.

So yes it is possible to do a room in a day if you start super early. And yes ill be so over it by 7pm but its done and I do a far better job than previous painters I have had.

Honestly it definitely something you should just learn to do.

£120 per day isn't even minimum wage when you factor in overheads and non chargeable time, sick and holidays, etc. I'd assume they were on the fiddle with tax and benefits.

Oh ro add i dont loosen ym switches etc cos i judt carefully edge it and if any paint goes on i use a cleaning wipe straight away to wipe it off. Im sure some people will tell me im wrong but it works for me 😆

That seems excessive to me. And a day to cover the floor!!! It takes me two weekends to paint a room, one to fill and sand and holes, and two coats on the ceiling. One to do do two coats on the walls and then undercoat and gloss on the woodwork. Less if the floor is up and you don’t have to be so careful. I also don’t empty the room, just chuck a dust sheet over furniture.

If you pay peanuts, you’ll get monkeys. if you want the job done properly and you want it to look lovely then you’ve gotta pay the money. All these people saying that it takes a day clearly have never done any decorating. It takes a week at least. By the time they have rubbed all the walls down and filled them then rubbed all the paint work and filled it then rubbed it down again then primed it, rubbed it down glossed it then applied a second coat if needed. That’s a weeks work. It’s not an unreasonable price.

Never painted a wall before. We got frog tape, some plastic thing for light switches, b and q rollers and brushes and a couple of cans of lovely farrow and ball paint. Hall way took a week but that was like an hour a day. Bathroom less than a day - each one. Easy peasy. Spend all your time, prepping not painting. Get decent paint that goes on nice. Decent tape, throws on the floor. Etc

Just because it hasn't been broken down doesn't equal plucked from the air.

Brother in law runs a decorating business and does not move furniture. Quotes are for the prep, decorating and materials.

Hard to comment on a quote when we haven't seen the room, what size and what prep needs to be undertaken, so people commenting that it's too much is just odd.

Ive been quoted 3k for a dining room 8ft x 10ft

I did my own living and bedroom. I did 1 wall at a time over a series of weekends. I just pushed furniture out of the way and covered it. The advantage of this is that I didnt need to properly clear the room. I did use plenty of masking tape too. And I got a lot better as I went on so I would recommend doing a less visible wall first. The disadvantage of this method is that it is quite slow and you have a bit more work cleaning brushes etc after each wall. All in all I am pleased. The finish is decent and it all looks way better than before.

Not with something like these.
DH and I are not as youn or strong as we were but furniture sliders are amazing.

Its only paint. Do it yourself.