Cost to get a room painted

[Anjelika]

I need to get around 4 average size rooms painted - walls and ceiling. Want to save up and get them done one by one. Both work FT with at least one weekend day taken up with DD’s sport so would take forever to do ourselves. Can anyone tell me what they have paid recently or have had quoted for an average size lounge or bedroom? No high ceilings. Thanks.

Depends on the current state of the walls and what part of the country you are in.

In yorkshire you can pay anywhere between £500 and £1000 for an average sized room depending on paint/paper/prep work needed.

Day rate for a decorator is £150-£250 ish if that helps.

I’ve painted my house myself. Takes a couple of days/ room.
However I’m alone so can cope with moved furniture etc.
Top tip is to colour wash, so walls and ceiling the same colour- no edges.
Otherwise a local Handyman charges £200/day and could do a room a day. So completely depends on your schedule and capacity for disruption.

For clarity, the previous poster obviously means colour drenching which is completely different to the technique of colour washing.

Colour drenching isn't liked by everyone but definitely simplifies the painting process as cutting in is avoided. We prefer to colour drench not purely because my cutting in is terrible, but as it makes spaces appear larger and more unified.

We love DIY and when DS was little/had lots of chorister commitments and we both worked full-time, we'd enjoy doing some when he was in bed/not around. But if you genuinely don't have time/inclination to DIY, then where I am you'd be looking at a day rate of £150+. As there's no joinery to be done, I'd estimate an average room would take one-two days, assuming you're wanting a similar colour to the existing as opposed to a darker colour over a light one or vice versa, requiring additional coats/drying time between them.

As pp said, if you have relatively new flat walls and no high ceilings it would take you and DP a weekend to do 1 room yourselves. I am assuming you don't have to take wallpaper off or put lining paper on and can just paint straight onto the wall. No way I would pay for a decorator if I lived in a house like that! Get some old music on and have a laugh!

Not everybody wants to get involved in DIY.

Painters like to work in 2 + rooms at a time so they can rotate between them, e.g. dining room is drying so they start scraping kitchen.

Costs depend on region and complexity of the job. Extra prep on the surfaces drives up the costs; the painting is the easy part.

I'm in the south near a cathedral city. The painter in our village charges ca £100/day/person - so he and his colleague are £200 per day in the village but more if they have to travel probably more like £300/day not including paint - we paid for paint but they supplied all other gear (brushes, cleaning fluid, etc.)
They charged £1000 and spent 5.5 days on cloakroom + shower room + 3 level stairwell. They painted ceilings white and walls a colour. The prep was simple but the spaces were awkward.

Thanks to all who replied. DH & I are going to repaint the hall, stairs and landing ourselves but that will be enough. Unlike some of the posters here, neither of us enjoy painting, hence me wanting a ballpark for how much it would cost for an average room. Had never considered it might be more cost effective to do two rooms at a time but will mention that to any painter I do speak to.

We are having our lounge, kitchen/diner and hallway all painted next week. We have bare plaster on two walls due to moving a wall which we have lived with for 6 weeks to make sure its dry, as that also needs a mist coat.

We are having mist coat, ceilings, walls and woodwork (doors and skirting etc) all painted and we have been quoted 1K for the lot.

We could do it ourselves, but we both work long weeks and don't want to spend our weekends painting. Especially when neither of us enjoys it, or is particularly good at it.

We can afford it and think its worth paying for someone to come do it for us.

As another PP has said, it may be more cost effective to get 2 rooms done at the same time if you can.

We paid about £700 for one average sized bedroom. However it needed wallpaper stripping and walls smoothing first. And we're SE.

I was quoted £1000 for a double bedroom. Did it myself in three days for about £200 which included a lot of decent equipment I’ll use again.

Oh and the £1000 quote said it would take 5-6 days

That three days was while working full time, it wasn’t three full days. I would say it was about 10 hours of work. Prepping took the longest, painting (3 coats) not so much

£1000 for one room is insane!!

We were quoted about £400 per room last time we asked (a few years ago), not including paint. South east. 10 years ago we paid £1k for kitchen, living room, stairs and landing, but the quality was bloody awful. Didn’t use them again. The £400 per room guy did a good job.

we decided to paint our daughter’s room ourself as I was on maternity leave with little spare money and only a 5 year old was spending any time in it. It doesn’t look brilliant though 🤪

It’s the prep I hate, such a thankless task. Moving furniture, washing walls, sanding stuff. The actual painting doesn’t feel so bad as you can see progress!

Honestly, having read your update, get someone in to do the hall, landing, stairs, and do the rooms yourself! Stairs are about the only bit I won't do myself

I get your point but we did the Hall, Stairs and Landing about 5 years ago so know what we’re letting ourselves in for. The easy part is that we can just do it by stealth and don’t have to shift loads of furniture to do it. We are just going to keep the same colour so it should be even easier!

"Extra prep on the surfaces drives up the costs; the painting is the easy part"

Yes, I would say most of the cost is preparation, the painting part is the least time consuming (and least expensive?) part.

A friend and I used to do our own decorating back in the day. She took a few hours to decorate, and me a few days. Turned out I was all diligent in preparation - cleaning the walls, sanding woodwork, more than one coat, covering furniture etc. She just slapped it all on, once and done.

Incidentally, IRL I've never found decorating as cheap as what I've seen as when I've been researching online. I don't think I've been ripped off though

Edited to add that decorator I've used would generally through in some basic replastering where paint won't cover wall cracks

Wow - £100 a day is less than minimum wage. And that's before any costs are factored in

It’s why we didn’t go for it, that was NW as well. It was from someone who I like and trust too.

We were quoted £385 per room.

We ended up paying £320 per room as we had multiple rooms, but got them done on odd days when they had a gap between other jobs.

Did they do all the moving of the furniture etc for,you?

They did, but everything had to be ready to move. So clear surfaces.

It meant photo frames and the likes were boxed up for a few weeks (took just under 4 weeks to have the last room finished). It was worth it though for me as it would have been months before he had the number of days in one block, but my SIL said she couldn’t have coped with the bits and pieces approach.

It really depend on the size of the room. Our kitchen is just a normal size we were quoted £450 it took him two days and he bought all his own pain the lounge he quoted £750 for materials and time. Which rooms were you thinking?

You need to get your head around those kinds of prices before you get quotes. It's not going to be cheap at all for what you want doing.

I'm sure the day is around an hour or 2 and pack up for the day.