Cost of painting

Guess unfortunately it probably depends where you live and a case of supply and demand

Last September I paid a decorator just over a thousand pounds to paint my large living room (two coats on the walls and ceiling, plus coving, skirtings and doors), and my bedroom which is also a large room (two coats on the walls and ceiling plus coving, skirtings and 2 doors, four fitted wardrobe doors). The cost included all preparation. It also included the paint which I chose and he bought at cost. It was a very fair price for a meticulous job but I had to wait months before he could start.

In case anyone hasn’t thought of it; if the paintwork has previously been painted in oil paint. That is the paint that needs a brush cleaner like Turps to clean brushes. In this case you shouldn’t paint over the top with water based paint (brushes for this are washed with water). This is because water based paint does not adhere to oil paint unless it is sanded down or has a really good primer which you can get for this purpose. If this is overlooked it can be painted over oil pant but is likely to gradually lift peel off. However, oil paint can be painted over water based with no worries. I watched a decorator painting my friend’s house and when I mentioned this to him. He said it would be fine . Well it was for awhile but she said the other day it would need doing again as she had lots of peeling. My dh also got paint out to paint the woodwork in the hall. He had started when I asked him about the paint he was painting over. It was oil paint but he sailed gaily on trying to reassure me that the water based paint was a good one. However, it wasn’t alright and started to peel after a few weeks. I understand it can be confusing but my long term hobby has been painting so understand how paint can work in this respect. So oil over acrylic (water based) but not water based over oil.

Our decorator is due to start first week of July - two rooms - one painted walls, the other wallpaper. Plus all other paintwork.

We are providing the (very expensive) wallpaper. Everything else including lining paper, paint colour of our choice etc is provided by the decorator.

She is charging roughly just over £1000 per room. We live in the South East.

We were planning to have the parquet floor sanded and repealed and quotes were £2000+. But thankfully after all the furniture has been taken away along with rugs we can see the floor is actually in pristine condition except a couple of patches which we can almost certainly sort out ourselves.