Decorating taking forever

[Onthesedgeofoureats]

What am I doing wrong?? We are in a 1930's semi that hasn't been decorated for circa 30-40 years. It is taking me forever to do all the woodwork and ceilings etc (it has taken around 10 days so far for dd's room and hall and stairs). Is this normal? Have only ever done a room at a time before, and then it was a quick clean up coat.

sounds like you're making fast progress

I am about to start a similar project, and family and friends are warning that it will take a very long time...

Also various surfaces will be more porous - old plaster, new plaster, untreated wood etc. It'll soak up tons of paint so you'll need to do several coats.

Halls/stairs always take ages since it's not just a straight run and it's usually double height/has stairs in the way.

We have some exceedingly dodgy painters who literally come in and put paint on the walls. What they do is not pretty, it's not careful but they managed to block out the oh-so-attractive midnight blue on our bathroom ceiling (why? why would you do that to a bathroom???!) with 5 coats of paint in one day by literally just painting in a circle - bit like the Forth Road Bridge!