COAT paint. OMG, is there a cheaper, good alternative?

[MannequinsArePeopleToo]

I'm painting the interior of my 2 bed house. When I say I'm painting what I mean is I'm paying someone to do it as I can't for numerous reasons. It's a new build and spacious in all the rooms but not huge. I've just used their paint calculator for the upstairs 2 bedrooms, 1 ensuite and the family bathroom. I deducted the windows and all doors but couldn't calculate for the almost fully tiled family bathroom and ensuite. One of bedroom 2 walls is actually a built in wardrobe so won't be painted.

£518.00!!!!!!!

I can't believe how paint can cost so much. And that the paint alone will end up costing more than the person is charging for the work.doing the job.

So, allegedly Albany can match any colour but I've never used it. But is there a good paint out there that doesn't cost the earth???

I was going to say the same thing that’s what I do.

No he's charging 900 for the whole house but starting upstairs. So I'll be spending on excess of £2000 I reckon.
However I don't go on holidays or spend in other ways than on my home and it's the last house I'll ever own so......

£900 for a whole house is a bargain.

I'm diehard Farrow and Ball I'm afraid. Our local homebase closed down and discounted all their tins so I stocked up 😁

Ah, so I might have a look at F&B. They have some tik tok shorts on choosing colours. Hopefully they have something I like that's less pricey! There's a Brewers near me that sells a huge range of F&B.
Thanks!

OP, Farrow and ball is hugely expensive and can’t be wiped or touched up. Stick with Coat if that’s what you love. Learn to DIY to save money?

to the other poster who stocked up on f&b in a sale - I hope you’re not planning to store it for long? It doesn’t take kindly to being stored. Ours went all curdled and horrible. I swore that I’d never buy f&b again for that reason.

@Plmnki thanks for the top about F&B. I need a wipeable paint finish . I'd do the job myself if I could but I just can't physically manage any more.
It seems like I need to think about it further before I commit to buying!

Price it up with off the shelf standard colours of Dulux (B&Q website) to give you an OK quality benchmark. You may be able to save a bit here by eg using kitchen and bathroom paint rather than eggshell in the bathroom (eggshell is expensive but a common choice for more water resistance in bathrooms). But this would give you a starting point. Obviously you could go even cheaper with eg Dunelm paint or pure brilliant white trade paint, it's up to you. But Dulux DIY paint seems a good place to start for me.

Next see what the difference is between that and your Coat price. Then go to a decorator's merchant such as Brewers and price up your Coat colours in colour matched paint. Mine recommends matching with Dulux for lighter colours (bit cheaper) and Johnstone's with darker ones, but ask their advice. They will also probably have chips of many other brands' standard colours which you can price up, and may work out cheaper than the colour matching. Then you will have a decent view of what you can get at different price points, and decide whether you think it's worth it.

You may end up thinking it's worth paying the extra, or perhaps going expensive shades in the bedrooms but settling for a more generic mainstream shade for the bathroom.

A couple of years ago I did an experiment as there is so much conflicting paint info out there - eg "F&B is terrible", "Johnstones is great colour matching" and so on.
I bought some F&B, Little Greene and Johnstones colour match and also tried some other paint eg Dulux, Valspar. The experiment cost me at least a couple of hundred quid.
My conclusion was: (sorry) ... you get what you pay for. The colours on the more expensive paint are richer and deeper (more pigmented, basically). Johnstone's colour match was (a) not very close to the F&B colour I tried to match it to .. and I was surprised to find, not very much cheaper either.
F&B and Little Greene have paints for high scuff areas eg hallways - it's approx 10% shine rather than 2% for their flat matts, so you can wipe.

So if it were me, I would just pay the money and get the good stuff!
But if you are loath to pay that much, use the F&B videos for inspo and buy a Dulux approximation, accepting that it won't be an exact match. HTH

@nongnangning that is such a helpful post thank you!!
I'm going to Brewers this morning as I spent an age yesterday afternoon on the F&B website looking at their colours for east/West facing and bathroom/kitchen/hallway walls. I'm buying 6 testers but I think I now know it's an investment I'm prepared to make in my final home.
Thanks to everyone else too for your suggestions.