Just had a quote to paint my living room

[sciaticafanatica]

It’s a big standard terrace living room.
no doors to paint.
4 walls a ceiling and skirts
all white.
it took me a day and a half to paint 3 years a go.
just been told it’s a 2 man job over 2 possibly 3 days and £850.
i honestly couldn’t stop laughing.
Trades are getting ridiculous

@spoonbillstretfordi get that but it seems completely pointless that he wasted his own time by providing a quote.
i don’t begrudge anyone making a living.
but £20 per 2m for white paint is ridiculous

You could try getting a quote from a handy man, it might be that painters are too busy and giving you a high quote to put you off.

Especially as it sounds like the job’s been half done with the mist coat already on and woodwork sanded and undercoated – they’ve got no guarantee of the prep having been done properly and it’s a risk. What if the OP complains about the finish – is that on them or her prep? She only wants one coat of emulsion, it’s either going to look crap and not properly done which doesn’t reflect well on them, or take so little time for just that it’s not worth the travel and set-up.

I was quoted over 1k to paint a 4mx3m log cabin! That quote didn’t include the paint which I already had. Did it myself, took me 1.5 days. It was brand new so didn’t need any prep, etc.

That's what I thought. Something being half done could actually be a problem.

We've just had a kitchen extension that's about 36sqm total and paid £300 for it to be painted last week (prep, mist coat, plus two coats of paint). Took our decorator 2.5 days and we had to supply the paint. I did feel a bit bad paying someone to do something I would usually do myself but having seen the prices here I feel we got a bargain!!

Last time I paid for the hall, stairs and landing to be painted it was 2019 and cost £300 . 1 person, she said 3 days but she turned out to be unreliable arrived 10ish (later one day due to an emergency) and left at 3. So it took 5 days in the end (didn’t pay her extra) not the best job as she got paint on the carpet (thankfully being replaced.) other quotes were more like £600 so £200 per day.
I wouldn’t pay £850 for 1 room, I could paint it myself in a day for about £80.

it’s not half done, its fully prepared.
i think the problem is they have no justification for their ridiculous price as it’s literally just painting .

Not painting, but for 8 slabs to be laid in my garden round the back of my shed I was quoted 2 grand. I nearly choked. It cost me 150 for all materials

It's probably best you do it yourself again then.

Tradespeople are in business. They need to charge for their time and overheads as well as materials. They also may make some profit.

Best to get another couple more quotes to compare before you dismiss them as ridiculous.

It's entirely possible that they don't really want the job, for various reasons.

Tradies are charging about £200 a day around here, each. So sounds about right.

I would guess that they have included the time to 'watch the paint dry'.
You could tell them that you can do that bit yourself.

I paid our decorator a day rate of abut £125 I think and they were rapid. They told me how many days it would take, stuck to it and did a great finish.

What did you expect the price to be, out of interest OP. I was having a conversation with someone the other day, he mentioned his brother is a decorator and charges £180 per day.

We were quoted £6k to fit a bathroom. We were supplying everything except little pipe fitting bits. He said it would take him a week. Crazy!

We're missing a trick here. Time to retrain 😁

I’m dreading when I get too old to do the painting myself as I find it so much easier than hiring the pros in. They always want the rooms cleared which is the hard part! Whereas if I do it myself I can do one wall at a time and I know it’s done well and no having to have a stranger in the house. Only time I have felt it was money well spent was getting the outside painted as that would be a lot trickier. I sympathise with you having a bad back OP, hope you can find someone cheaper

My thoughts entirely.

OP you are very rude about ‘trades’. That’s probably why.

200 a day is the going rate it appears for all tradesmen.

They probably don’t actually want to do it so have upped their price to put you off
I agree.
Last year I needed my stairs , hair and landing doing.
I live in a cheap area in tbe north West.
I was quoted £4000.
I didn't know if that was good or not because no other decorator turned up to quote .e when they said they would.
I agreed and asked for a start date but he did that turn up.
I eventually got one who charged £1000.

Sometimes tradesmen give a wild quote because they don't want to do the job.

We wanted out kitchen cabinets painted a few years ago and the prices quoted were insane. Plus we would need to do all of the hassle part of emptying cabinets/ kitchen out of action for days etc. We decided to do it ourselves and if it would look terrible, we would then pay someone to redo it.

it looked great after we did it, and much less hassle as we could do the prep work in stages and still use the kitchen. Felt very vindicated, and even a few years later still looks great and gives me a lot of pleasure. Spent the saved money on a spa weekend!

My neighbour also got quoted 3.5k for painting a log cabin and 10 or 12 fence panels. And that was from a mate of his. He asked his “mate” if he’d do it for 3k and was told no! Reckoned it would take him 2 weeks to do. It’s taken me 4 days to do the same.

That’s good. I got quoted around £1500 just to paint walls and ceiling

Isnt it? I’ve never done that when replastering. You just loosen light switches which aren’t normally replaced if you are changing a light fitting. And I’ve never taken doors off or removed the skirting for replastering either. Obviously you can do all those things, but wouldn’t say it was the norm so sorry that I didn’t immediately understand whet you meant. No need for an eye roll. My comment wasn’t nasty. Maybe you had a similar attitude with the decorator and that’s why he gave you such a ridiculous quote as he didn’t want the job!