House Painting Cost by Room & Job 2026: What Each Job Really Costs

Painting Cost by Room: 2026 UK Price Table

“How much does painting a room cost?” is the most-searched UK painting question, and the honest answer is: it depends on three things — the room’s size, whether the ceiling is included, and whether the woodwork (skirting, door, window frame) is painted too. The table below is the Q3 2026 benchmark for a standard job: two coats of trade emulsion (Dulux Trade or Crown Trade), minor filling and light sanding, decorator labour and VAT included.

Prices assume good-condition walls, two coats of trade matt emulsion and standard prep. Heavy prep (wallpaper stripping, deep filling, sanding) adds £80-300 per room. London and the South East add 20-30 percent. Premium paints (Farrow & Ball, Little Greene) add £40-90 per room in paint cost alone. For an instant personalised figure, try our free painting cost calculator.

Typical Painting Cost by Job Type (UK 2026)

Mid-range UK averages from the tables on this page: single rooms are walls-plus-ceiling jobs, the hallway figure covers hallway, stairs and landing, the exterior bar is a front-only repaint, and the whole-house bar is a full 3-bed interior including woodwork.

Mid-points of the 2026 UK ranges on this page. Your quote will vary with prep, paint spec and region.

How Much to Paint a Bedroom in 2026

A standard double bedroom (12-16 m²) costs £220-360 for walls only, £320-500 with the ceiling, and £480-750 for a full repaint including skirting boards, door and window frame. A small box room is £180-280 walls-only, while a large master bedroom runs up to £600-950 for the full job. Most bedrooms are a one-day job for a professional decorator; a full repaint with woodwork stretches to two.

What affects the price. Bedrooms are the cheapest rooms per job because access is easy, furniture is simple to shift to the centre, and ceilings are standard height. The variables that move the quote are wall condition (deep filling and sanding on older plaster adds £80-300), colour changes (a dark-to-light change needs a third coat), and paint choice — a double bedroom in mid-range trade paint uses £35-55 of paint, but the same room in Farrow & Ball costs £100-150 in paint because premium emulsions cost 2-3 times more per litre and cover less area.

DIY or decorator? Honestly — a low-traffic bedroom is the best DIY candidate in the house. The surfaces are forgiving, mistakes hide behind furniture, and the room is out of guests’ sight. If you paint just one or two bedrooms yourself, DIY makes financial sense. Where DIY falls down is prep: professional finishes look better for longer because decorators spend real hours filling and sanding first. If your walls are in poor shape, the gap between amateur and professional results widens sharply, and it’s worth getting quotes for the work before committing a weekend to it.

How Much to Paint a Living Room in 2026

A lounge or living room (18-25 m²) costs £320-520 for walls only, £450-720 with the ceiling, and £700-1,150 for a full repaint including all woodwork. It’s the most expensive standard room in the house — more wall area than any bedroom, more woodwork (skirting runs, window frames, often a bay, sometimes picture rails or panelling), and it takes a decorator around two days.

What affects the price. Living rooms punish shortcuts because they’re the room guests actually look at, in daylight, from a sofa. Feature walls in deep colours need extra coats; bay windows add cutting-in time; TV brackets, shelving and alcoves all slow the roller down. High-traffic living areas also need repainting more often than bedrooms — interior emulsion lasts 4-7 years in general but only 3-5 in high-traffic rooms — so it pays to use trade paint with better scuff resistance and washability.

DIY or decorator? This is the room where hiring a professional earns its keep. Cutting-in around a bay window, getting a flawless finish on the chimney-breast wall the light rakes across every evening, and glossing metres of skirting are exactly the jobs where first-time DIY shows roller marks and wobbly lines. If the budget only stretches to one professionally painted room, make it this one.

How Much to Paint a Kitchen in 2026

A kitchen (10-15 m²) costs £250-400 for walls only, £350-550 with the ceiling, and £500-800 for a full repaint — unit doors and carcasses are always priced separately. Here’s the counter-intuitive bit: a kitchen has less paintable wall than a bedroom of the same footprint, because units, tiles, splashbacks and appliances cover most of it — yet it doesn’t cost less. The reason is cutting-in. Every unit edge, tile line, worktop junction, socket and extractor is a boundary the decorator must edge by brush rather than fill by roller, and edges take far longer per metre than open wall. Kitchens also need moisture- and grease-resistant paint, and surfaces must be sugar-soap degreased before any paint goes on — skipping that step is why DIY kitchen paint jobs peel around the hob within a year.

What affects the price. The amount of exposed wall versus units, whether the ceiling has been yellowed by cooking (stain-block primer needed), and paint spec — kitchens and bathrooms are the shortest-lived paint surfaces in the house at 3-7 years because cleaning wears the finish.

DIY or decorator? A middle case. The open wall areas are easy; the edges are not, and the degreasing prep is tedious but non-negotiable. If your kitchen has lots of exposed wall above units, DIY is realistic. If it’s a galley kitchen that is mostly edges, a decorator’s day rate of £180-280 buys a much crisper result.

Cost to Paint a Hallway, Stairs and Landing in 2026

A hallway and landing (12-22 m²) costs £280-500 for walls only, £420-720 with ceilings, and £650-1,100 for a full repaint. Add a staircase with tall stairwell walls and the stairwell element alone is £380-650 walls-only, rising to £800-1,400 for a full repaint with bannisters, spindles and strings glossed. As a complete job, most hallway-stairs-landing repaints land around £450-950, taking 2-3 days.

Why the access premium? The stairwell is the one part of a house interior a decorator cannot reach from a standard stepladder. Painting the head wall above a staircase safely needs ladder staging, adjustable platforms or a scaffold tower, plus the confidence to use them over a drop — this is genuinely the most dangerous DIY painting job in the home. High ceilings, long continuous walls with no natural break lines, bannisters with fiddly spindles, and heavy scuffing (hallways are the highest-traffic surfaces in the house, needing repainting every 3-6 years versus 5-10 for living rooms) all add labour hours.

DIY or decorator? Ground-floor hallway walls and the landing: fine to DIY. The stairwell itself: hire it out. A fall from stairwell height onto stairs is not a risk worth taking to save a few hundred pounds, and the long sight-lines down a stairwell make patchy roller work obvious. Decorators bring the access kit and do this job weekly — get free quotes and you may be surprised how reasonable the stairwell premium is when it’s bundled with the hallway and landing.

Cost to Decorate a Whole House Interior: 2/3/4-Bed (2026)

For “paint the whole house” projects, decorators quote by total project rather than per room — and bulk-room quotes are usually cheaper per room than single-room quotes, because setup, protection and travel are spread across the job. A full interior repaint of a 3-bed semi — the typical UK home — costs £2,500-4,200 in 2026 and takes 5-8 days with one to two painters. That covers all rooms, ceilings, woodwork (skirting, architraves, internal doors in two-coat satin or eggshell) and trim. A lighter-scope repaint — existing colours refreshed, minimal woodwork — can come in around £1,500-3,500.

Interior repaint includes all rooms, ceilings, woodwork, skirting and architrave. Wallpaper stripping is extra at £15-25/m² of wall. London and the South East add 20-30 percent. On a per-square-metre basis, interior painting runs £8-14/m² of paintable surface for mid-range trade paint, or £14-22/m² for premium paint or heavy prep.

DIY or decorator? The maths stops working for whole-house DIY. Materials for a 3-bed run £600-900, but the job consumes 60-90 hours over 3-6 weekends — if you value your time at £20 an hour or more, the professional’s £2,500-4,200 in 5-8 days is better value, and the finish typically lasts 4-7 years versus 2-4 for amateur work. See the full breakdown in our house painting cost guide.

How Much to Paint the Front of a House — and the Whole Exterior (2026)

Painting just the front of a house costs £800-1,800 in 2026 — the standard job for terraces and semis where the sides and rear are shared, rendered previously, or simply not the priority. A full exterior repaint of a 3-bed semi is £1,800-4,500, covering render or pebbledash walls, fascias, soffits, window frames and the front door, over 4-7 weather-dependent days. Booked as an add-on to an interior repaint, the exterior element of a 3-bed typically prices at £1,500-3,200 because the decorator is already on site.

Render vs bare masonry. Smooth render is the quickest exterior surface to paint; pebbledash and heavily textured render sit at the top of the range because textured surfaces take longer to work paint into and consume noticeably more of it. Whatever the substrate, exterior masonry work costs more per square metre than interior — £12-22/m² mid-range versus £8-14/m² inside — because of ladder and scaffold access, pressure-washing and repair prep, and weatherproof paint prices. The payback is longevity: quality masonry paint lasts 10-15 years on well-prepared render or brick, and timber exterior paint 6-10 years, so cost-per-year is similar to interior work.

Timing matters. Exterior painting needs sustained dry weather with mild overnight temperatures, which in the UK realistically means May to September — and peak-season lead times stretch to 5-8 weeks, so book spring or early autumn slots ahead. DIY or decorator? Ground-floor front elevations on a level street are DIY-feasible; anything needing work at height above a porch, bay or second storey belongs with a professional who carries the access equipment and insurance. Compare 3 free quotes via our painting and decorating service page before the summer rush.

Woodwork and Glossing Costs: Doors, Skirting and Windows (2026)

Woodwork is the difference between the last two columns of the room table above: adding skirting boards, the door and door frame, and window frames to a walls-and-ceiling job adds roughly £100-250 per room for bedrooms and £250-430 for a large lounge with long skirting runs and a bay. Across a whole 3-bed interior, woodwork paint (satinwood or eggshell) accounts for £80-180 of the materials bill, with primer or undercoat another £60-140 where bare or stained timber needs sealing.

Why woodwork costs disproportionate money: it is entirely brush work. A roller covers a bedroom wall in minutes; a panelled door, spindled bannister or sash window is slow, precise brushwork with drying time between undercoat and topcoat. Modern practice is water-based satinwood rather than traditional solvent gloss — it stays whiter, dries faster and has replaced solvent-based gloss as the standard for interior woodwork. Externally, fascias, soffits, bargeboards, windows and doors as a standalone package run £800-1,800, and high-exposure timber like front doors needs the shortest recoat cycle in the house at 4-6 years.

DIY or decorator? Glossing is the least forgiving DIY painting task — runs, brush marks and dust in the finish show at eye level on every door you touch daily. Painting walls yourself and having a decorator do the woodwork is a genuinely sensible hybrid many households use: you save on the easy square metres and pay the £180-280 day rate only for the skilled brushwork.

What Affects House Painting Prices in 2026

1. Preparation depth. Quality painting is 80 percent preparation, 20 percent application. Minor filling and light sanding are included in standard prices; full prep on older walls — deep filling, sanding, priming stained plaster — adds 20-40 percent to a job, or £80-300 per room. The difference between a cheap and an expensive quote is rarely the paint; it’s the prep hours.

2. Labour rates. Decorators charge £180-280 per day across most of the UK and £220-350 in London and the South East. Labour is typically 65-75 percent of an interior quote, so day rates move the total more than any other factor.

3. Paint specification. Trade paint (Dulux Trade £38-48/5L, Crown Trade £36-46, Johnstone’s £32-42) covers better and lasts longer than retail equivalents for a small premium. Designer paints (Farrow & Ball £82-98/5L, Little Greene £75-92) cost 2-3 times more per litre, cover 15-20 percent less area, and add £40-90 per room; labour is unchanged whichever brand you choose.

4. Colour change. Like-for-like refreshes need two coats. Dark-to-light changes need a third, adding paint and a day or more of labour on bigger jobs.

5. Ceiling height and access. Tall stairwells, high Victorian ceilings and work above porches or bays need staging or scaffolding — £400-900 for exterior scaffold access.

6. Wallpaper. Stripping costs £150-300 per room (or £15-25/m² of wall), and lining paper afterwards adds £80-150 per room where old walls need a smooth base.

7. Property age. Pre-1960 homes may have lead paint: testing kits cost £10-25, and regulated removal adds £500-1,500 to exterior repaints.

How to Save Money on Painting and Decorating

• Bundle rooms. Bulk-room quotes are cheaper per room than single-room jobs — setup, protection and travel get spread. If three rooms need doing this year, book them as one job.
• Combine interior and exterior. The exterior of a 3-bed priced as an add-on to an interior repaint is £1,500-3,200 versus £1,800-4,500 as a standalone job.
• Do your own prep-lite tasks. Clearing rooms, removing pictures, curtains and fixings, and washing walls down saves paid hours — decorators quote lower for empty, ready rooms.
• Stick to trade paint, skip designer brands in low-stakes rooms. Dulux Trade and Crown Trade deliver the same practical result as Farrow & Ball in ceilings, hallways and rental rooms at a fraction of the paint cost. Save premium paint for one statement room if you want it.
• Avoid peak season for exterior work. May-September is the exterior window and quotes tighten when diaries fill; book in early spring for the best availability.
• Hybrid DIY. Paint bedroom walls yourself; pay a professional for stairwells, living rooms and woodwork where skill shows most.
• Compare three quotes, and make them itemise prep. Ask each quote to state coats, paint brand and prep hours — the cheapest quote usually wins by cutting prep, which shows within 18-24 months. Our free service matches you with three vetted decorators: start here, or use the painting cost calculator first to benchmark your job.

Regional Price Differences

Paint costs the same nationwide; decorators don’t. London and the South East sit 20-30 percent above the cheapest UK regions, driven by day rates of £220-350 versus £180-280 elsewhere. Across the Best Builders 2026 Cost Index, a whole 3-bed interior repaint spans roughly £1,300-3,100 in the North East and South Wales up to £2,000-4,600 in London, with the Midlands, Yorkshire, the North West and Scotland in between. The per-room figures in the tables above are UK averages — adjust up for London and the South East, and slightly down for the North, Wales and Scotland.

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