Is it worth DIY painting a flat?

moneyistooshorttomention

Even a room that had been totally replastered immediately prior to its last redecoration might take longer than expected.

The "ask me how I know that" factor is that I have just had a room totally replastered and skirting boards replaced with new, but I'm going to have to do sanding-down of walls and woodwork prior to the first time I decorate it myself. Reason being the plasterer wasn't good enough and therefore the walls haven't had their replastering done to high enough standard, followed by those walls and the woodwork weren't sanded down properly prior to decorating.

Darned annoying, as part of what I paid the decorator for was precisely in order that future repainting would literally just be a case of "two coats of paint all round and Job Done". So, I'm not pleased I will have to do this "professional decorator's":cool: preparation work for him come whenever I have to redecorate in a few years time.:(

SingleSue

I've always painted the house rather than got someone in. Most annoying one was finishing up all the painting, leaving it overnight and then coming down in the morning to find paw prints on my newly glossed windowsill....and going all over the carpet!

Pesky cat....and the joys of open plan blooming living.

Mind you, now ex hubby had a perfect way of getting out of decorating, I had been painting all weekend with not a drop anywhere other than where it needed to be, he gives in to nagging to help me out and within 5 minutes, he had knocked the tin of paint down the stairs.

Dukesy

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Even a room that had been totally replastered immediately prior to its last redecoration might take longer than expected.

The "ask me how I know that" factor is that I have just had a room totally replastered and skirting boards replaced with new, but I'm going to have to do sanding-down of walls and woodwork prior to the first time I decorate it myself. Reason being the plasterer wasn't good enough and therefore the walls haven't had their replastering done to high enough standard, followed by those walls and the woodwork weren't sanded down properly prior to decorating.

Oh dear

We've done all the plastering in our current house ourselves, but in our last one we got a plasterer in. As it was an ancient little cottage, we actually asked for the plastering to be 'rough'. It took the plasterer several reworkings before he told us that he wasn't going to make it any rougher as it would reflect badly on him if we told anyone who had done it we could have done with a rubbish plasterer there!

Dan-Dan

I hate hate hate hate , and hate again , decorating , and am quite happy to pay someone to do it for me

ging84

to me it seems like the OP is just describing a coat of paint to refresh a house, not a full renovation.
My father is a retired painter and decorator, i spend many summers working for him when i was younger. Between 2 of us we'd easily have painted the walls and skirtings in an empty flat in a day, it seems like half the people on here would still be unpacking their paint brushes and covering things in tape by the time me and my dad were half way through and ready for a lunch break

claire16c

It depends how complicated the rooms are.

I painted our lounge and it took me about 5 days.

We have a day do rail which I did one colour above and another below and I had to put masking tape all along that, above the skirting boards, and below the coving.

Paint the walls, skirting boards, day do rail, coving & ceiling. 2 coats on the walls.

There are 3 doors in the living room which also needed painting. The doors were brown and I was painting white so took around 4 coats & fiddling about round the handles. Thank goodness I did them last as I was loosing the will to live at this point.

Then we have a large window sill which needed repainting and also the wood above the window, more masking taping etc

We now need to do our hallway up the stairs, landing & spare room, think I'm gonna pay someone! The spare room is pretty basic and we could do in a weekend but the hall is not and just the thought of my accident prone husband on a ladder up the stairs with a bucket of paint..

ncooper1974

whalster wrote: »

If I'm not too busy then I do them when the rental period ends it takes me three days for only one coat of walls and undercoat gloss woodwork.
If I have a flat or house that is too bad I look at it and think stuff this for a game of soldiers and get the painters in two of them do me a full flat with a couple of coats in a day and a half it's a lot better job than I can ever do however costs me 400 quid labour only .

£400?!? for only 1.5 days?
I get the same for around the £300 mark, and its in East London.

Probably out of context for this thread, but just wondering what part of the country you are in and why so much on labour?