3-bed semi, patch plaster, line paper and paint

dunroving

I have a 60s average size 3-BR semi with a medium sized kitchen diner, small bathroom and separate toilet.

The wholeplace is wallpapered mostly in embossed wallpaper, with some sort of heavy silk paint in many places.

I'm getting a full rewire and installation of Ethernet cabling and satellite throughout, which involves chasing in, so whole house needs redecorating. I have itemised below.

Pre-stage: I will do all the wallpaper stripping, hopefully to a standard where the decorators don't have to do much remedial work. Then, or during, sparky and Ethernet team will do their thing over about a week.

Redec stages below.

Stage 1: Plasterer will then make good all the chasing and (hopefully) minor skimming and patching elseswhere. So far, the plaster looks in solid condition under the paper I have already removed, so fingers crossed.

[Note: Ceiling wallpaper will not be stripped as it's harmless looking and in good condition (except bedroom 1).]

Stage 2: Lining paper on all walls (long living room, downstairs hall, two-side walls on central stairway, small upper landing, three bedrooms) plus BR1 ceiling. Kitchen/diner and bathroom don't need lining paper (tiled and in good condition already), nor does bathroom (tiled).

Stage 3: Paint (matt emulsion, neutral colour) all walls - long living room, small dining area, downstairs hallway, stairway, small upper landing, three bedrooms. Paint (single refresh coat) ceiling of living room, downstairs hallway, stairway ceiling, small upper landing, and two bedrooms. Third bedroom had paper stripped and liner applied, so it will need a couple coats of paint. Paint (eggshell) all woodwork - 8 interior doors and all skirting. Exterior doors are all PVC.

I have 4 quotes coming in.

Team 1 has quoted £5.2k for everything except the plastering (which I find odd, because he also does plastering, and we had discussed plastering).

Team 2 has so far quoted £700 for plastering if it's a 2-day job and £1k if it ends up being 3 days, based on £100 for materials and £300 per day labour (think it's a 2-man team). Having seen the plasterwork so far he thinks it will be two days but depends on what other evils are uncovered and amount of damage from rewire.

Will add the others as they come in but wanted to get this up, as I need to make a pretty quick decision. The good 'uns are booked weeks ahead and I want to get into the calendar before I move my stuff in 5-6 weeks.

phill99

Why are you lining everything? Jut get it plastered and emulsioned onto plaster.


Will save time and money. I do not understand your logic.

dunroving

phill99 wrote: »

Why are you lining everything? Jut get it plastered and emulsioned onto plaster.


Will save time and money. I do not understand your logic.

Thanks for the suggestion, all expert advice appreciated!

The (original) logic was based on two things.

My current house was almost completely replastered, with new plasterboard etc., because the place was in such poor condition - the plaster was coming away with the paper big-time, and I inherited polystyrene ceiling tiles that also brought down the ceiling plaster when removed. Over the 8 years since, the plaster has blown in two bedrooms (about a 12-inch border directly below the ceiling), and numerous finer cracks have appeared.

My brother similarly had plastering done in his house (some on existing walls, and some in a kitchen extension built last year). He has a stack of cracks that have appeared over just a 1-5 year period. In other rooms, a decorator put on lining paper and then painted and it looks pretty good. Of course, any fine cracks in the underlying plaster then do not show.

So ... my rationale was that if I just get the chasing made good and holes/cracks filled and minor skimming where need, I might then be looking at a series of cracks appearing. In my current home, the blown plaster was repaired (in the thre bedrooms) and this necessitated all walls being repainted because 10 years later, even the "same" colour mix was slightly different.

Having now stripped the paper in several rooms, the plaster so far looks pretty solid ... so if as you suggested, not papering with lining paper drastically cuts down costs, I may go with that idea. Costs are mounting up, as is the timeline!

dunroving

I thought I'd update the quotes on here, for other people's use. In descending order of cost:

Quote 1 - £5.9k. Slick outfit that uses airless spray to spray on plaster and paint. Very high-end stuff. Not concerned about needing to re-view property after wallpaper stripped, as the spray system (apparently) covers a lot of evils more easily than hand-plastering.
Quote 2 - £5.5k. Young fella runs his own business, small team of plasterers and decorators. Price would be re-evaluated after wallpaper stripped, though looking at the walls I had already stripped, he didn't see any major issues.
Quote 3 - £4k cash, or £4.8k with VAT (interesting). Sole trader who has done good quality work for relatives. Didn't mention needing to re-view after paper stripped off walls.
Quote 4 - £2.6k. Young lad (probably 30-ish) with 5 years' experience now starting his own business. Hi pal is a F-T plasterer, runs a team of two. Plasterer pal also had same caveat re: Needing to review but said if it went to a third day would be an extra £300.

I went with Quote 4, not just because it was cheapest (though it was clearly way below the other 3). I'm taking a bit of a leap of faith, but a reputable builder has had him paint 4 rooms, and front door in her house and has highly recommended him. He is very flexible, so can start doing work before electricians come in, and I have also said I can give him the paper stripping job, which he is able to do (I'm up to my eyeballs, so this was a Godsend).

I'll update after the job is finished to let you know how the leap of faith went! I feel good about the situation though, because it gives me a lot of wiggle room and is helping someone who is just starting out. I have great admiration for trades people who try to set up on their own. I wouldn't have the nerve.