How much does a decorator charge to paint a room?

Everybody in the country right now is feeling the pinch and of course tradespeople are no different. Material costs are rising constantly, in fact as I write this I've been informed that one paint company is raising its prices by 6.5% for the third time in twelve months. So in effect I pay 19.5% more than I did last February. These costs inevitably have to be passed on to the customer, so it's also more important that as a trade I continue to provide value and a service. What I have come to realise lately is that some do not have an idea of how much hiring a decorator costs, especially when taken in tandem with rising material costs and also if they have never hired one before. So I thought I'd write a quick blog on the costs of hiring a decorator, it's something I've touched on previous blogs but as I've wrote this for ten years a recap never hurt anyone!

For the basis of this post, the costing is going to be based upon an average main bedroom which requires the walls stripping before painting. 

First off the cost of stripping the walls can be variable as it largely depends on the existing paper. Painted wood chip will take a lot longer than normal paper. Myself I can usually strip a room anywhere between 4 and 8 hours so that's a days labour. Then the next step is the condition of the walls. Good condition they can be cleaned down, filled, sanded and sealed. Bad condition I recommend hanging lining paper after initial prep before painting. That would add an extra day on top. I would be prepping the woodwork at the same time as prepping the walls so it's ready for painting. Once the walls and woodwork are prepped, its applying two coats to the ceiling, then two coats to walls followed by one undercoat and two gloss/satin/eggshell to the woodwork (that's my process anyway) that's usually 2 days.

Now we have the processes nailed down let's discuss labour costs. The going rate for a professional decorator per day is between £150-£250, some cases it's higher. https://www.checkatrade.com/blog/cost-guides/painter-decorator-prices/ This recent blog post on Checkatrade gives their own opinion on how much things cost. For the West Midlands the rate is usually £150-£200 so for the basis of this we'll call it £175 per day. We know the stripping and prepping takes two days and the painting takes another two so we have four days labour at a total of £700. If lined this adds an extra day so £875 but we'll say it hasn't needed to be lined,

Material costs can vary greatly depending on the type of finish you are putting on the walls. A contract matt is a lot cheaper than a Vinyl Matt which itself is cheaper than Durable Matts. For this room we are applying Dulux Trade Vinyl Matt to walls and ceilings (I don't use Vinyl Matt on ceilings personally but I'll touch on that later in the year)and using Dulux Trade Quick Dry Satin on woodwork. Currently at Dulux Decorating Centres, price for Vinyl Matt is £60 for 5 litres colour mix, £45 for 5 litres White and undercoat and satin cost £19 & £28 respectively. https://www.duluxdecoratorcentre.co.uk/product/paint/interior-emulsion/matt/ Paint costs alone come to £152 and I've added the link so you can see current pricing. Obviously these can vary from brand to brand and these are trade paints, retail paints cost less but for a reason and again I'll go into that on a later post. Before we add these up we need to account for sundries such as fillers for the walls, filler for the woodwork, sandpaper for sanders, caulk for gaps, masking tapes and other protective materials. On average it costs about £25-30 per room for these. Altogether we have £180 in materials. 

Our total cost now comes to £880 for a bedroom. If I was to give you that price alone with no further information it seems steep, as I've broken it down though you can see it's fair. Now for a previous painted bedroom in decent condition with no stripping etc labour charges get reduced so you could be looking at around £450-£550 for a bedroom based on two days labour. These costings are just an average, hall stairs and landings often start around the £900 mark and everything depends on the state of the surfaces along with materials used. All these variables will alter the price so it is difficult to actually say how much an average room will cost. It is also imperative that when you get other quotes to compare that they are pricing using similar materials and that they are doing the same level of preparation etc, as you could get a quote saying this room cost x amount and its considerably cheaper yet they don't include any materials and sundries in the price. Once you take in the cost of buying these and fetching them it normally turns out to be the same price as the one supplying everything.