Decorating quote

[Poddledoddle]

Ok so I have recently purchased a doer upper. It desperately needs a new bathroom. Which means I can't afford to have the kitchen done any time soon. In the meantime I have enquired with some decorators regarding having the kitchen cupboards painted.

There are 8 lower cupboards and 6 upper cupboards.

I have been quoted £750, £900, £1100 and £1300, and between 3 days and 6 days.

Myself and boyfriend have massively different opinions on these quotes. One of us thinks they are reasonable and the other thinks they are a rip off and can go to b and q, buy the paint and do it ourselves as it were.

Just wondering what others thoughts are?
Unreasonable- quotes are fine
Reasonable- quotes are a rip off.

Many thanks.

Sorry if I've misunderstood, but is someone quoting you £1300 and saying it will take 6 days to paint 14 cupboards?

We replaced the doors in our kitchen for less than your quotations. We used
https://kitchenandbedroomdoors.co.uk/kitchen_door_range.asp?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAA932JrMLEh9sNaKjgvCiVcLyb1T5V&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt8yE0JvZhwMV25ZQBh0v1SGNEAAYASAAEgJ_j_D_BwE and are pleased with them.

We had painted the previous doors a couple of times - cheaper for certain but it took ages.

That’s pretty standard where we are, one of my friends is a decorator and charges £65 per cupboard and he is one of the cheapest in our area so sounds about right to me. Our neighbours had theirs done and it was £75 a door.

You can do it yourself but a lot more goes into it than just buying a tub of paint from b&q and cracking on. To get a good finish you’d need to be sanding the doors down, priming them etc.

Yes, sorry, I've forgotten drawers too. They've said the first day is prep. Removing doors and drawers, hardware and stripping the wood and prepping the wood will mostly be on the first day.

I think I'd save the money towards a new kitchen

Ah okay that makes more sense, I thought you meant literally just painting them and that was it. Stripping and sanding wood down does take bloody ages to be fair, so if they have to do a lot of prep work I can see why it would take longer and cost more. £1300 still seems pretty steep, suppose it depends where you live though.

I wouldn't want to say without knowing the exact work but as a starting point, it's not a mininum wage job, it's a skilled trade, you're paying for time and experience. You're also paying for someone to put their name to that work.

You should also be expecting the tradesperson to be paying themselves a wage, pension pot, insurance, travel time, fuel and vehicle maintenance, tools and equipment, accounts, plus enough to actually make their business profitable.

So 10 hours a day at £20ph to cover all that would bring you close to the cheapest quote. Or 45 weeks earning £750pw is about £35k per year (with a few weeks sick and holiday).

It costs money to get people in. It one of the reasons people DIY.

Was confused with the voting but no quotes are a joke!

If the kitchen is structural ok, just needs a cosmetic uplift, look into vinyl wrapping your doors and drawers. Ask your local fb group.

I’ve just done our whole kitchen myself - as a PP said, it does take more than just painting - had to clean, sand, prime etc. I also bought all new hardware so had to remove old stuff and fill the holes in. It took me about five days in total for my kitchen which has roughly same number of cabinets, although I was working around DC. Total satisfaction though in having done it myself! Though at a fair few points I definitely vowed if I ever did it again to get a pro in!!

I paid £750 to get my kitchen cupboard doors painted in 2008, so the prices look fine to me.

It's a lengthy and complicated job, and I wouldn't have done (or wanted to do!) all the stages properly or thoroughly by myself.