Jump to content

Recommended Posts

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!

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • What "stricter" consequences could there be for shoplifting (or any other crime) than being put into jail, do you think? Though our prisons are of course full enough already, without more people being shoehorned  into them.
    • Returning to the original question, I had my jabs at Tessa Jowell yesterday. I was early and I was  seen on time, and it was a lovely pharmacist who did them, but the admin beforehand (not by her) was a bit iffy. I was given forms to fill in but not told what to do with them afterwards, so I  presumed I had to take them into the consulting room, as the rest was supposed to be filled in by a clinician, but no! After some time had elapsed and I had found a seat (there was no information on where to sit either, so people were sitting in two separate areas, neither of which had many seats) my name was called and  the forms were taken behind the counter. Be aware if you don't have an appointment - even in the relatively short time I was there, three people turned up without appointments having been sent there by a GP (I presume) or having  previously been  asked by the pharmacy to come  back at a different time, and they were all sent away again because the pharmacy didn't have enough flu vaccine until the following day. I have no idea if this was due to a misunderstanding on the people's side, their GP's or the pharmacy's, but none of them were very happy, and one lady said she "couldn't keep coming back" 😭  At least one of them didn't seem to understand what he was being told, possibly due to a language issue. I felt quite sorry for the pharmacist, who was giving jabs all day on top of her usual workload but still managing to stay cheerful! Though she wasn't the one dealing with the unhappy people! I have a sore arm from the Covid jab (I chose to have the jabs in different arms), but no other ill effects so far, touch wood. 
    • Line speed and the strength of your Wi-Fi signal are two separate things.  The first is determined by the type of connection (fibre/copper etc) to the outside world and the second is the connection between the device (printer/TV/laptop/tablet etc) and the router. If you are connecting a device to the router using cables (as Alec1 is) then this is will give the best possible connection but isn't practical for many without a degree of upheaval and even then not all devices (tablets for example) will allow a wired connection. So you relying on the quality of the Wi-Fi signal from the router to the device and this will depend on the quality of the router, the type of Wi-Fi connection (the frequency), line of sight etc - many different things.  This is why some people opt for a "mesh" type setup which is supposed to give a solid quality of Wi-Fi signal around the house with little or no blackspots.  It's expensive though and still requires the devices that send and receive the signal (like the plug-ins you have) to be wired to the router.
    • We have had a few cat flaps over the years but none have been electronic. They just have a small clip that you turn to lock or open.  Some come with a magnet and a matching magnet that the cat wears on its collar  This prevents other cats entering.  I've not used these as I don't like the idea of a cat wearing a collar. Cats do like to be out at night and you need to encourage yours to return after a late evening sortie. Calling,rustling treat wrappers worked for ours but he seems to have now got into the habit of coming back about 9pm. without this.        
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...