To ask how long you'd expect someone to take to decorate one room?

[seasidefishwife]

Small double room. One wall to be papered, two walls white. One dark grey. One hole to fix. Plus skirting boards.

I ask as DH had all last week, and he's still not halfway through. WTF is taking him so long???

I find wallpapering slow but generally I would think that would take 2-3 days max?

It'd take me that long, but I'm messy and would have huge trouble getting the wallpaper right. Depends on how good he is at that kind of thing, I'd guess.

1 day

Wood work and filling holes one day, wallpaper and paint the next.

Maybe stretch to 3 if I was worried about paint bleeding but certainly not 3 full days that way.

What IS taking him so long?

Is there a rush for it or something? Is there a back story here on why you’re pissed off?

I'd do that in three days max. Two days if no undercoat and taking a full day. One full day to paint, three hours to fix masking tape and paint woodwork, four hours to do wallpaper.

He hasn't even started on that wallpaper yet

Have you asked him what’s taking so long?

The different coloured paints would be a ballache. And depends how many coats. I could take a week doing that.

Has he done the work before and knows how to do it? Does he not feel confident he can do it? Does he know where to start? He might need a bit more instruction. Or is there other work he wants to avoid and he's just taking his time?

I would probably feel more confident by doing myself the DIY myself and leaving him to my chores.

I've just fixed the blinds after years of having it barely working and a huge amount of time spent getting my ex to fit it because he'd done them before and had all the tools. He swore the first blind was faulty as he couldn't get it working and broke it so I took it back and got it replaced. The replacement he said was rubbish too - I'd got it too cheaply and needed to buy better quality!

He'd put the fittings up wrong and then forced the blind into place to get it to fit. I've just spent 20 minutes putting the blinds up correctly. It now works perfectly although slightly warped and loose due to it being forced in incorrectly.

@Bluntness100

Is there a rush for it or something? Is there a back story here on why you’re pissed off?

He had the whole of half term with me at home. So no homeschooling to do. I took the DCs out everyday so he could focus solely on the decorating. The crap from the room is spread out upstairs in our very small house. I go back to work tomorrow. That means he'll be homeschooling our DC's (they are utterly incapable of getting on with stuff independently) so he's not going to be able to do anything significant till I get home from work at 7pm. I'm so pissed off!!!!

My dh is a painter and decorator so I'd say roughly 6 years and 10 months and counting

Seriously though, filling, woodwork and first coat day one. Second coat and paper day two.

The answer is, he's obviously fannying about.

@PandemicAtTheDisco he likes to think he's really good at thus kind of thing. He's not at all, but I can't tell him that. Any suggestions I make just get taken as nagging so I have to leave him to it.

Depends how good he is at that type of thing. If skirtings are being sanded down, it will obviously take longer. If he's shit at wallpapering, it will take longer. If he's shit at cutting in, it will take longer. If the paint needs more than one coat, it will tale longer 🤷‍♀️

3 days tops. I use water based primer and finish on skirting so dry in no time. Wall papering can be a bit of an arse but walls? Easily 2 coats on both white walls in one day if not cutting in grey wall also on the same day.

Unless he needed a lot of coats on the white walls to cover up what was there. But easily finished in the 5 days of half term. I am the decorator in this house.

Never sand, Zinsser BIN primer is your friend.

My husband would take a week, but it would be a lovely job at the end. I’d be screaming ‘just finish it! ‘ as he went round the edges with a tiny brush...

Two days maximum

Start to finish, clearing room, preparing walls etc, decorating, then rebuilding the room, it takes me about five to seven days working alone.
If there are major colour changes requiring several paint coats, that adds time as well.
I'm also stopping to cook meals, and don't do much decorating in the evenings as the light is poor.

3 days tops and that's with a difficult pattern match on the wallpaper

For someone who isn't a decorator I say a week or there abouts .

For my household, I'd be waiting until I call a painter decorator to come over and do it because everytime we've tried to wallpaper it's ended in disaster.

3 weeks and that's just to clean up the mess I make.

2-3 days max. I do loads of decorating and could crack it in 2.

2 days to allow time for paint to dry in between / wallpapering can be tricky

DH painted our fairly large bedroom in 3 days. No wallpapering skills, unfortunately.