West London: Decoration costs. Is this too much?

[lockdownguru]

Dear MNs,

I have received a quote the other day for a refurbishment of my 3 bed Edwardian house (with a loft and kitchen extension). Approximately 130m2. I find some of the quotes surprisingly high, but wanted to get your opinions before coming to conclusions!

What do you think of these two in particular? Do these numbers make sense to you? Or should I look for other quotes?

Painting (£6,500): all rooms, hallway, doors, woodwork, bannisters, bathrooms, etc
Stairs (£1,500): GF, 15 steps, remove carpet and fit vinyl, paint risers

Materials are not included in these quotes, just the labour.

Ex Londoner here and fortunately my DP enjoys DIY so I haven’t had to pay for many a year.
But for a professional job I would think somewhere around the £5K mark that could reasonably extend to £6. I paid in Kent over £3k 8 years ago for parents 3 bed bungalow to be repainted cash in hand to retired painter plus materials.

Staircase I can’t comment on.

You mention various quotes so how far apart are they all?

@friendlycat I see - I have 2 other quotes for the painting job, and frankly this is what confused me greatly: 1st one was for 12k and the other one around 3.75k. The difference is massive..

I see what you mean! Well £12k is way over. The lower price is very good but what’s the catch? It may well be one man band, low labour cost Polish/Eastern European who are charging lower rates for manual work versus a small company of decorators.

Check that they have relevant insurance. See if you can negotiate the middle one down a bit. Or gamble on the lower one but I think I would want testimonials or have heard of them by word of mouth as it does seem rather low. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for. I don’t ever think that the most expensive is always the best but I do often think that the cheapest isn’t always great. But again these are strange times and the lowest may be fine and they are desperate for work. But that bottom price seems very low for London rates and for circa 1300 sq feet.

£6k is too much for painting. Is that inc. vat?

• £3.75k seems more reasonable. Is that inc vat?

I'd say no more than £4.5k is fine.

Can you explain the stairs job please?

@themummyway

£6k is too much for painting. Is that inc. vat?

• £3.75k seems more reasonable. Is that inc vat?

I'd say no more than £4.5k is fine.

Can you explain the stairs job please?

For context, I've a 3 bed end of terrace - was quoted 2k+VAT for my house but it was definitely on the cheap side. Painter was decent though!

The VAT is very valid as the cheapest quote may well be cash in hand and the £6.5k one could easily be £5.4k plus VAT = £6.5k.

To paint absolutely everything, all woodwork, all ceilings, all walls and prep each room well and do a good paint job I don't think the middle quote is too bad if it includes VAT.
e.g. somewhere in the region of £550 per room x 3 for bedrooms
£650 kitchen
£650 sitting room
£750 hallway
£750 upstairs landing
£400 bathroom
etc etc.
You can obviously tweak these figures as to how the layout of your house, but realistically you are not going to get a decent painter to prep and paint a room for £200 per room.

Thank you all, I now have a better understanding of the costs 🙏
Both prices include VAT.

The other thing that bothered me was the GF stairs. I have now two quotes to:

• remove carpets (fixed with grippers)
• lay vinyl instead
• paint the risers

Quote 1 is around £300, whereas the other one is £1500 - which the 2nd builder literally told me “you can think of one stair per day, it’s labour cost is high”. But the difference is fivefold!

£300 sounds on the cheap side (to me) whereas £1500 is way too much...

I think anything in the region of £500-700 is about right

The quote for my place, bit bigger than 130m2, was just shy of 12k plus vat. This was a part of the whole project so I told them to leave it off as frankly they were taking the piss.
I did the whole house apart from the bare door frames which a very pleasant chap came round to do and while nattering he asked about what someone might charge to decorate the place and almost fainted at the quote! He said he’d have charged around 3-4k