How long did it take you to decorate each room in your house?

[ErinAndTonic]

Random one.. we haven't done much to our house since moving in, and I've been very white/grey/safe in my choices meaning very little has been done aside from some initial painting the walls white and removing wallpaper when we first moved in.

I've been feeling inspired recently and have made a bit of a Moodboard idea for each room - want to get a bit braver with colours/themes and channel my creative side. The house doesn't need much heavy work done.. most of the flooring will stay put aside from bathrooms/kitchen/hallway. So mostly it's painting, reorganising, wallpapering and then sprucing up with the pretty stuff.

I just wondered what kind of time it has taken people to a) fully decorate their home and b) to redecorate one room when (hopefully) nothing too involved needs to be done. I do want to move a light fitting in one area so I know that's going to take longer and need help.. I'm just wondering what is realistic to achieve while I'm hibernating over the winter. Is one room a month realistic? I know some rooms will be simpler than others.. but is this a good starting point?

(I need to have a plan to work towards otherwise I won't have any motivation.. ADHD brain 😅)

One room a month is definitely realistic! Most of the time is prep work, filling and sanding and getting ready to paint really so entirely depends how good your wall are as to how long it will take.
Top tip is to wrap brushes and rollers in cling film which means you can just do a bit of rolling each evening without needing to clean everything each time. The paint will stay wet underneath for days and you can just use it again next time

As for your question, I tend to get right into something so I've decorated rooms over a couple of days. It depends whether you are going to tackle it or come and go.... you need to wait between coats so realistically at least 2 days minimum

Thank you, good tip for the brushes!

The prepping is the bit I hate and will be tempted to skip on so hopefully can roll the boyfriend in on this one. I just want to get to the creative bit.

Good to know I could potentially finish the lounge before Christmas though, as I'm hosting so need to make a decision one way or the other!

The prep for straightforward decorating takes two days, checking that there aren’t knots in wood, areas that need filling etc. A day to paint the ceiling, then the walls. That might be one or two, depending on how many coats it needs.

I think I am overlooking this for sure. Time to get on YouTube and understand the process!

It always takes me about a week to do a room, including all preparation and being very particular about getting it perfect. I only do a few hours of it a day or it's too tiring.

Also, painting is best done in daylight so at this time of year there aren't as many painting hours in the day.

I just wondered what kind of time it has taken people to a) fully decorate their home and b) to redecorate one room when (hopefully) nothing too involved needs to be done. I do want to move a light fitting in one area so I know that's going to take longer and need help.

When we moved in here, there was nothing urgent, and we had no money. We've generally gone with one room a year, and kept things on a cycle like that, so about 12 years.

I'm just wondering what is realistic to achieve while I'm hibernating over the winter. Is one room a month realistic?

Well, it depends on so many other things.
When we moved in to our current house, we had 3 small dc, were dealing with bereavement and then clearing parents house and all that is involved with the estate, we were both out at work, both involved in quite time consuming volunteering, and neither of us are particularly keen DIYers.
My nephew, OTOH, has recently completely renovated their new house (incl knocking down walls, replacing ceiling, new boiler, central heating, electrics, and all decorated in about 4 months. But they are young, have no dc, have nothing they are involved with outside of work, have had an enormous amount of help from his (retired) Dad.
Completely different scenarios and all have a huge impact.

Timescales really depend - is decorating a hobby for you? If it is, then you could probably get it all done very quickly. I've been in my house and barely done any because decorating just isn't a hobby for me even though I'd like to live in a nicely decorated house.

Plus there's two of you, so it should be able to be done relatively quickly.

It takes us bloody ages because our house is old and wonky. My friend OTOH was able to paint two walls and wallpaper two walls, build a bed and put up a shelf in her son’s room in a few hours plus transfer him into the new bed WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING IN THE SAME ROOM so that he was surprised by his new room when he woke up in the morning on his birthday 🤣

So we just painted our bedroom and it took two days. One day of prep and then we painted Tuesday night after work. We used dulux trade super Matt which is super opaque and only needs a couple of hours between coats. I have a steamer which makes prepping the walls easier as the sugar soap takes too long. We just steamed and left the dehumidifier on overnight. Finished late on Tuesday and now we’ve got someone coming round today to put the new furniture together. It’ll be finished tonight so 3 days all in. If there’s no heavy work involved I really don’t think it’ll take you longer than a week