Paying someone to decorate - rough estimate?

Consigliere
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I am looking into painting a room - roughly 3m by 6m.

There is other touch ups required eg filling holes/removing annoying plastic hooks from the wall.

Obviously I may just do it myself but for this sort of size, how much would it cost to get a decorator in and would they do the touch ups also?

Would I supply the paint cost - assuming yes? I predict 150?
 
Associate
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Cotswolds
I am looking into painting a room - roughly 3m by 6m.

There is other touch ups required eg filling holes/removing annoying plastic hooks from the wall.

Obviously I may just do it myself but for this sort of size, how much would it cost to get a decorator in and would they do the touch ups also?

Would I supply the paint cost - assuming yes? I predict 150?

Are you NW5, as in London? If so, you think someone is going to paint a room for £150? And you're also querying if you might sort the paint!?

You're way under for a proper professional. Depends on how much you want it to be a good job or not. DIY it unless you really don't have the skills...
 
Soldato
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£350-£650 per room plus materials. Cost efficiency is in more rooms as on site with materials etc so you may find all internals only £1.5-£3k for example

If you can find someone willing to just do one room.

Any decorator worth using is unlikely to want or have time to do it at the moment but a general tradesperson / handyman would (£100-£130 per day).

Unless you are really unable to do it yourself, do it yourself. Even with some prepwork it's not that onerous.
 
Soldato
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Our decorator is £120 per day we supply the materials, he is local on our estate so we know him personally but I know he is booked up for at least 2 months in advance at least, this is Derbyshire though so London I imagine would be more expensive.
 
Consigliere
OP
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Really helpful replies all - thank you! :)

I had a look at checkatrade also to see of any locals but this does help give me an idea when I start asking for quotes.

@SeatIbiza I wasn't going to reply and rise to it but it is clear from my OP that I have no idea about this topic. No need to drop in such a "shock" comment. :)
 

SMN

SMN

Soldato
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Reading here. We use a guy who plasters and decorates. Pay roughly £1000 per room, including plastering of all walls and ceiling and painting. We supply the paint, he supplies the plaster. Takes around 5-6 days per room.
 
Soldato
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Madness if anyone is paying £350-£600 per room. You've been had, royally. Although I know our decorator, he always clearly states he doesn't do mates rates on labour but might on materials (or supply own), had 3 rooms wallpapered (one wall per room) and an entire kitchen and utility painted for £590.
 
Caporegime
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A decent decorator will take a week a room including making good properly unless it’s perfect to start with.

Maybe 4 days depends on the amount of woodwork and rubbing down.

Lolwut?

A week to paint a room?

Pollyfilla holes is a 2 hour job and 95% of that is waiting for it to dry and whilst that is happening you can tape wherever tape is needed.

Sanding is 20 minute job. It's a few tiny holes here and there he's not plastering from scratch.

Then painting can be done as quickly as however big the roller is. You could literally do a 3m by 6m room in 15 minutes with a large roller for a single coat bar the brush work which you can do whilst waiting for the main parts to dry for the second coat.

Hell even my father in law at 65 painted a bedroom in a day with 2 coats.
 
Caporegime
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38,372
Madness if anyone is paying £350-£600 per room. You've been had, royally. Although I know our decorator, he always clearly states he doesn't do mates rates on labour but might on materials (or supply own), had 3 rooms wallpapered (one wall per room) and an entire kitchen and utility painted for £590.

I'd say £200 per day is about right for someone really good and isn't taking the pee but the problem is so many morons out there willing to pay for basic things like painting a room that they end up charging ridiculous amounts and getting it and rather than do jobs at a fair price you may as well take advantage of the idiots and just quote everyone extortionate amounts and see if they bite.

I know someone who was quoted £1000 for a single wall to be panelled with MDF and then painted.

They did it themselves in a day for £150 in material costs so £850 was the guys day rate for labour.

Once had a CCTV installer quote me £80 per hour to run ethernet cable and terminate it. I asked how many hours and a proper quote and they said it takes as long as it takes. They didn't get the work. I've seen folk like that before literally take 5 hours to run 4 cables all in the same location.
 
Soldato
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It's London, good luck getting anyone to be arsed with such a small job. I'm just outside and unless you are mega flexible and near another job, it's really tough as it's not often worth their time/cost of missing out on a bigger job.

Does HomeServe do decorating? Might be an easy way forward as it's out of the tradesman's hands.
 
Soldato
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Sussex
A week to paint one room, wow. I've got a guy who will do a room per day, sometimes two depending on drying times and pre work. Roughly 350 for an average room, highest was 850 for a large hallway, stairs and upstairs landing with lots of ladder work.

Tend to diy now, with my wife we can do a room in a weekend start to finish and tbh its quite enjoyable doing it yourself and obviously saves money. Not a lot else to do right now!
 
Soldato
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Totally depends on your standards. If you’re happy to have a bucket of paint slapped on walls then yes a day for two coats of emulsion.
It's certainly not a week though, is it... Unless we are talking some rediculously sized and shaped room including stairs and what not.
 
Soldato
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Hampshire
Earlier in the year paid £390 for labour and paint for a kitchen and diner, base of white and then Dulux Kitchen wipe down paint, came in 4 separate days to finish. First time I've got someone in to paint and will definitely be getting him back for the more used rooms as the finish is much better than I can achieve.
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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Painting is such a DIY job.... However it's also a utter utter pain the arse I always try to get a chap in to do especially if it's a major redo.
 
Soldato
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Somewhere in the middle.
The amount of work involved varies massively.

Our house is 1930s and the skirting and door frames have layers of paint probably from way back then . I stripped skirting and doorframes in hallway and it too me an absolute age with a heat gun and scraper etc.

There is a huge differences between rubbing woodwork with a sanding sponge and actually stripping everything back and starting fresh.
 
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