Painting quote.. is this reasonable???

[newoldhome]

I have moved into a small house. I had someone come round to do a quote to paint the living room, stairs, landing, one double bedroom and one small box room.

The rooms are small. The living room is fairly small. The whole house is 600sqft

The guy has quoted me £2,000 (not including materials) and said it will take him 12 days to do.
12 days??? I thought it would be 5 days MAX.

I said I didn't anticipate that length of time. So he said if I want he will just do the living room so it's done before Christmas which will take him 4 days and will be £720.

I feel absolutely baffled by this. I'm new to this so just wanted to check if this seems right. I'm in the northwest.

That day rate is spot on. So much of decorating is preparation.

Quote sounds reasonable but the timeframe is too long. Is it just him painting by himself? Maybe look for a company who can send out a few guys. I got my kitchen, living room, hall and two bedrooms painted recently (no ceilings or woodwork though) and it took 4 days with one painter who was never here before 9 or past 3.

Sounds completely reasonable. I recently had hallway, stairs and landing done, including ceilings, woodwork (12 doors, skirting, picture rail), which came to £2.5k, including materials. That was 14 days. I was home during the work and they all worked incredibly hard.

My hall stairs and landing not massive, but high ceilings was over a £1100 over 7 years ago took more than week to do ( can't remember exactly how long )
As a side note I do not recommend Valspar paint it stinks like fish and it terrible for colour saturation
So I don't think that quote is high but ask around for other options, good painting is a skill

To do a proper job, the time and money sounds spot on.

Depends on how much prep it needs. Can take a day to prep a room properly. And does that include woodwork? Then sounds good price to me! A £166 /day rate is really good.

I'm in SE England and that's a good price

I’m in SE and got a quote of £2k to paint one bed house inc ceilings and woodwork/doors.

He is going to get it done whilst I am away for two weeks.

I think it sounds reasonable.

@newoldhome have you seen the quality of his workmanship, I would pay good money for good work, you are going to live there & see it everyday.

I would imagine the bedrooms and living rooms will be much quicker, but stairs are awkward and landings have many doors you have to cut in around. 5 days seems too little to do a thorough job on 3 rooms, stairs and landing. 12 days seems excessive. As others say, get more quotes.

That's a decent quote. You should ask for a price break down so you see how much that'll actually cost the painter- you'd be shocked!

We had hall, stairs and landing done, over three floors, and it took one guy three days. That didn’t include banisters though- they’re natural wood. I’d guess that could have doubled it, as they are both fiddly and a lot of surface area.

We've just had hall stairs and landing done, £1100 and ten days work. I was here the whole time and the decorator hadn't stopped bar 15/20 minutes at lunchtime. He's done an amazing job, the walls are super smooth and it's like looking at a different house, the amount of prep he did was insane.
I usually slap a coat of paint on the walls in other rooms but I couldn't do the hallway because of the height, now I can see what a professional does I won't be doing it myself anymore, it was worth every penny.

It might be reasonable - it depends on how much work they do, how many coats, what condition it's in etc and what is the going rate for that type of work locally.

You could try looking up going rates on consumer websites such as Which? or Checkatrade or similar to get some sense of hourly rates. And get a few quotes and ask them to break down the total figure to what is their hourly or daily rate.

All I can say from experience is that getting painting and decorating done does seem to be expensive. So I wasn't shocked by your figure, though I'm in a different region - south east. Recently a house with stairs, 3 bedrooms, one living room had two painters in for 10 days but I don't know all of what they did. Sometimes they do other work such as putting up curtain rails or blinds.

To save a bit of money, could you paint one or two of the rooms yourself? I did my whole house myself - even the stairwell and landing! It takes longer but it's easy enough to do if the walls are in good condition and you can manage a bit of patience and technique, with a steady hand and a good little brush for cutting in the edges.

No, it's really not. Not even with a top quality decorator. Only one taking the piss

It can be, if you're healthy & don't have any issues ( vertigo, knees that no longer do ladders, you can't stand a long time, have had a shoulder replaced, or physically disabled)

NOT to mention any non health related issues such as have babies/toddlers (and no one to mind them), have caring responsibilities taking up all your spare time.

or plain just don't want to.

Low quote, high quote, OP either one will have you thinking you've made the wrong choice! Haven't read the whole thread (sorry), but if you're talking prepping each room (sanding, undercoat, topcoat), then it will take more than a day a room. Labour, materials, VAT, £2k doesn't seem stupid at all. Anyone saying that had this kind of work done for a few hundred, sorry, not by professionals you didn't.

Trades build in slippage time to allow for unforseen issues. £720 for almost a week's work, his experience, insurance cover, getting there etc isn't bad

@newoldhome that's a lot for your job. It's far longer than a top decorator would allow too.

There are quite different 'qualities' of 'Decorators' around as well.. You need to decide on what 'level' you're prepared to pay for.

Oreviously I did my own & I'm a perfectionist, fussy fussy fussy. I'm prepared to pay for someone who is highly skilled now that due to accidents (complete shoulder replacement, fucked knees & BPPV (vertigo) make it virtually impossible to do it myself. But I'm struggling to find someone at the moment.

A good friend keeps going on about using her Decorator. She thinks he's great . She's got a lovely house & from a distance the painting looks fine (if she posted pictures it would look great) but closer up it's dreadful. it's hard to tell a friend that's why I won't use him.

yes, he'd be cheaper, but it would annoy me a LOT.

im in the SE, nothing is cheap!

im on 'Next Door' but 'reviews' are often not worth the space they're taking up! Most friends haven't used a Decorator (except the one I mentioned earlier).

How fussy are you? (There's nothing wrong with being like my friend & not like me. In fact her life is much less stressful because she's much more laid back!!)

What condition are your walls in?

Really depends on what they are quoting for
architrave skirting, et cetera et cetera take forever if they’ve all got to be rubbed down and there’s lots of filling actually it could be a really good price not loving the price for one room though in comparison, the guy used for my stuff charges 400 a room ish no change of and the walls are in a a really good state medium to smallish rooms in the house

That’s £14 an hour, well under what anyone can realistically find a good decorator for these days.

Well, yes. I thought all that went without saying. 🙄

Damn, I’ll do that for you in half the time with half cost.

Just had hall, stairs and landing done. Took 4.5 days and was £750 inc all materials. I thought it was a bargain.

Sounds expensive to me too, I had a quote to paint my large kitchen-diner, it was £250 including materials, he thought it would be a day's work, maybe run a couple of hours into a second day.