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???

Well I'm not the best person to ask because the spare bed is still covered in Christmas decorations that if I could be arsed would take an hour to put away. And DH is very much of the very careful and thorough type so it took him a week to do the DDs room but we had to empty the room of furniture and get the DDs set up in the spare room (1 day), pull down horrible wallpaper, fill a ton of holes in the walls, paint over a dark purple wall so that took about 4 coats (1 day for the first 2 coats), paint roof and walls (1 day for 2 coats), lots of woodwork to mask, paint, sand and paint again (2 days), clean the rather old carpet and scrape stickers all the furniture (even with Sticky Stuff it was a nightmare job) (1 day) then clean all the furniture with sugar soap and reconstruct the beds and move everything back (1 day). 1 week gone. Even our small bathroom took 3 weekends: 1 to paint the roof and woodwork and 1 to put up the wallpaper (lots of obstacles in a small room) and one to do 4 coats of decorator's varnish.

2 days

I think a week max. I'm taking into account emptying out the room, all the prep - removing fittings etc, sanding, washing, filling, then pain ting ceiling, walls, woodwork, clean up and stuff back in place.

‘I can do the job quickly, cheaply, well - you can choose any two - never three’.

If you're sanding and then glossing skirting boards with more than one coat (16-24 hours between coats according to my tin of paint) and painting walls with more than one coat and doing wallpaper on another wall then there's no way you'd do it decently in two days as some are suggesting. The skirting boards would be masking taped off for 2 days at least so you couldn't paint the walls at the same time - well I certainly wouldn't.
He could probably have done it all in a week though - but if the cutting in and wallpapering is done well then I'd give him a break because it'll look good and he'll have saved you a lot of money on getting someone in to do it.

@HeronLanyon

I know everyone will say no but has anyone done a room in sections while still living in it ? My sitting room is small and full. Not cluttered but full. I can’t really empty it easily. I keep thinking I could do two walls skirting etc with everything shoved over and covered. Then the other. Ceiling will take some thinking about. Is it possible ?? I’m usually meticulous so this feels all wrong but only practical solution I’m thinking.

I did my bedroom like that. Clean/vacuum, shift stuff, clean, vacuum where the furniture was, cover backs of furniture. Do a wall. Let dry. Shift stuff over. Do next wall. Repeat. Took me 3 afternoons that way.

He's probably just doing a good job of it rather than rushing. Could you help to speed it up a bit?