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Hi, has anyone had decorators to paint their hall and staircase? We've just had a quote from the painter from our loft company to do that for us too while they paint the new bit, and the quote is ?2000 for the downstairs hall, staircase and landing, and one side of 7 doors. Sounds loads to me, as we've always done our own painting before so I've no idea, but can anyone offer any advice as to whether it sounds reasonable??


Thank you!

That sounds pretty excessive. This Which page https://local.which.co.uk/advice/cost-price-information-painters-decorators is a few years old but reckons an average of ?350 for your job excluding doors, so call it ?450 for inflation, double it for doors - I'd say a grand would be about right.

Sounds about right to me. Painting can be expensive.


It may depend on the quality of the surfaces currently, and how much prep work is needed, you could ask them about that.


Door painting is more precise work too I'd imagine. Maybe ask for a breakdown of the quote and see what aspects are costing the most, before you confirm.

I'd say that 2k sounds about right although you could probably negotiate it down a bit. It's usually around ?150 per day not including VAT for one person on the job but can be more like ?200. The painting and prep of walls/ceiling is the most straightforward but doors, banisters, skirtings etc can hike up the price due to the prep work involved. They'll need to be sanded and primed prior to paining and this is the time consuming bit. As a guide we had the inside of 2 bedroom sash windows and that took the decorator the best part of two days in prep. To be fair they were knackered but it's not a cheap job.

If I were you I'd ask for a breakdown of the job, hall/staircase/doors. I would imagine that it's the staircase and doors which will take up a fair percentage of the cost.

rendelharris Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> That sounds pretty excessive. This Which page

> https://local.which.co.uk/advice/cost-price-inform

> ation-painters-decorators is a few years old but

> reckons an average of ?350 for your job excluding

> doors, so call it ?450 for inflation, double it

> for doors - I'd say a grand would be about right.


Ever painted a hall stairs and landing ?


Its all stairs and ladder work, which makes it the most challenging decorators job.


?2K isn't a lot.


When I was in interior business we did a house in Bromley. Strip and re-dec ?14k.

Seabag Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> rendelharris Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > That sounds pretty excessive. This Which page

> >

> https://local.which.co.uk/advice/cost-price-inform

>

> > ation-painters-decorators is a few years old

> but

> > reckons an average of ?350 for your job

> excluding

> > doors, so call it ?450 for inflation, double it

> > for doors - I'd say a grand would be about

> right.

>

> Ever painted a hall stairs and landing ?

>

> Its all stairs and ladder work, which makes it the

> most challenging decorators job.

>

> ?2K isn't a lot.

>

> When I was in interior business we did a house in

> Bromley. Strip and re-dec ?14k.


As it happens yes, did my mother's for her. Took me about a week and quite a few bob to hire the right sort of ladders. I'm not trying to justify anything or comment on what decorators are worth - it's certainly a job I wouldn't want to do full time, murder on the back - just passing on what seems to be the going rate. I reckon it's actually the seven doors, anyway, that have really bumped the price up.

Basically the problem seems to be you've not got a quote broken down into man days and materials costs ?

If you have that you're better armed to speak with them about it and compare to other quotes in a practical way.


I've just stripped, filled, sanded, primed and painted a four-flight of stairs hallway with 3 landings and a long ground floor hall which took 10 days solo, including ceilings and the wooden stairs and floors. No power tools.

Wow, well that sounds impressive (and is a helpful reference), KidKruger!


Thank you all so much for taking the trouble to give me these responses, which are really useful. The price was a bit of a shock, and I had no frame of reference for it, as we haven't had any painters quote independently for this job. The loft company's painter paints the new stairs and rooms they have built for us as part of the build cost, but, as our downstairs hall and up the stairs need doing too (we had to have a dampproof course installed, and then replaster that part), it made sense to get them to do that too, so we've only asked them what the cost of that additional work would be. I'll definitely get them to break the cost down for me. If it really is the doors bumping the costs up I'll do them myself! I did the other side of half of them anyway, and didn't find that too onerous; it was the stairwell I was most apprehensive about doing ourselves. There's only one guy working on it, and they are expecting to have it all done in a few days, so ?2k still feels expensive to me. A lot of it is painting over brand new plaster... I guess I'll just have to get them to crack on with the 'free' bit (painting the loft stairs etc.), and get some separate quotes for downstairs (any recommendations gratefully received!).


Thanks again everyone.

Quality will vary greatly, some work we have had done looks like they mixed grit into the paint. Helps if you come from a postion of strength so that you can judge, give beedback etc. So have a go yourself sometime. Nowt wrong with using the professionals, some of the quotes make my eyes water which is why a little knowledge goes a long way.


But there again I am surrounded by half finished projects so who am I to judge.

We paid ?1500 for our hall, stairwells and landings plus 4 upstairs doors in our medium sized terrace back in 2007. So ?2000 now seems ok to me, just perhaps a tiny bit on the steep side? The most helpful figure you could have in that quote is what they are going to charge per decorator per day.
  • 4 weeks later...
We have a quote for just over ?1k (6-7 days work - 1 guy) to do our hall stairs and landing which includes both sides of 6 doors (new, primed doors but the frames were in a bit of a state), banister/spindles and all other woodwork (skirting boards/radiator cover, hall cupboard etc) - the walls are in excellent nick but some of the woodwork needs attention. Our guy has recently painted our kitchen/family room and done a really decent job so we've booked in him to do the rest!

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