Painters & decorators · Stamford and the Welland valley
The part you pay for is the part you can’t see.
Anybody can put the last coat on. We are four people in a yard off Scotgate who fill, caulk, sand and mask for two days before a brush touches a wall — and who publish what that costs before you pick up the phone.
What it costs
Our rates, in the four currencies this trade quotes in.
Decorating is sold by the day. Plastering, tiling and floor laying are sold by the square metre. Most firms quote in both and explain neither, so here is all of it. Held for 30 days from survey.
| Work | Basis | Typical |
|---|---|---|
| Interior repaint, three-bed house | per job7–10 working days, two of us | £3,200–£4,800 |
| One room, walls and ceiling | per roommaterials in | £420–£640 |
| Decorating labour | per person, per daylabour only | £290 |
| Re-skim over sound plaster | per m² | £18–£24 |
| Full re-plaster to brick | per m²browning or hardwall, then set | £32–£45 |
| Wall tiling | per m²labour, solid bed to BS 5385 | £34–£46 |
| Floor tiling | per m²labour | £28–£40 |
| Engineered board | per m²supplied and fitted | £52–£95 |
| Smoothing compound to subfloor | per m²where the survey calls for it | £9–£16 |
Inside every price above
- Two finish coats to walls and ceilings
- Filling, caulking, sanding and stopping
- Mist coat on any new plaster
- Dust sheets, masking and floor protection
- H-class extraction on all sanding
- Waste taken away under our upper-tier carrier registration
- VAT at 20%
Quoted separately, always
- Making good blown or cracked plaster
- Lead paint, and textured coatings applied before 2000
- Access above first-floor reach
- Moving heavy furniture
- Colour changes after the schedule is signed
What you are paying for
Four days of this before anything looks like paint.
Preparation is between forty and sixty per cent of the hours on a repaint, and none of it is visible when we have gone. It is also the entire difference between a wall that holds for twelve years and one that flashes by Christmas. So we write it down, and we price each grade separately.
Wash down and protect
Sugar soap over everything, because paint does not stick to kitchen grease or nicotine. Floors sheeted, carpets taped at the gripper, sockets and ironmongery off rather than masked round.
Fill, stop and caulk
Nail holes stopped in the woodwork, cracks cut out and filled properly, and every wall-to-trim junction caulked with decorator’s acrylic — never silicone, which will not take paint and ruins the line.
Sand, and feather the edges
Each repair sanded until its edge tapers away to nothing and you cannot find it under a coat. All of it under H-class extraction, so the dust leaves in the vacuum rather than settling on your stairs.
Prime, seal and stabilise
Knotting on bare softwood, stain block over water marks, a thinned mist coat on new plaster so it keys instead of peeling. Never PVA — it is the commonest reason emulsion comes off a new wall in sheets.
What we do
Four trades, under one insurance certificate.
Painting & decorating
Interiors, exteriors, sash windows and spray-finished kitchens. Wallcoverings hung, including lining and heavy grades.
Sold by the day, or by the room
Plastering
Re-skims, full float-and-set to brick, dot-and-dab drylining, and lime work on the older stone houses along the Welland.
Sold by the square metre
Wall & floor tiling
Bathrooms, wet rooms and kitchens. Tanked where it needs tanking, solid-bed fixed to BS 5385, movement joints where the standard asks for them.
Sold by the square metre
Floor laying
Engineered board, LVT and stair runners. Subfloors checked for moisture before anything is opened, and boards acclimatised in the room first.
Sold by the square metre
Colour and finish
The four we specify most, and where each belongs.
Sheen is two separate ladders and they are not interchangeable. Walls run matt to vinyl silk; woodwork runs flat to gloss. LRV is the light-reflectance value — under 20 in a north-facing room will read as a cave by four o’clock in November, whatever the card promises.
- Ladder
- Emulsion
- Sheen
- Matt
- LRV
- 82
- Use
- Ceilings
- Ladder
- Emulsion
- Sheen
- Soft sheen
- LRV
- 64
- Use
- Halls, stairs
- Ladder
- Trim
- Sheen
- Eggshell
- LRV
- 18
- Use
- Joinery
- Ladder
- Trim
- Sheen
- Satinwood
- LRV
- 14
- Use
- Front doors
While we are in your house
Ten working days is a long time to have strangers in.
A three-bedroom repaint takes two of us seven to ten working days. Nobody else on this trade’s websites will tell you what that is actually like, so here it is.
Two of us, one van
The same two people for the whole job. You get both mobile numbers on the morning we start, and we ring the night before if anything moves.
One room at a time
We work room by room and put each one back before opening the next, so you keep a kitchen and a bed throughout. Nothing is left in pieces over a weekend.
Swept, not just tidied
Sheets stay down, but floors are vacuumed and the kettle area is cleared daily. All sanding is under H-class extraction, which is the difference between dust in the bag and dust on your books.
Or no keys, if you would rather
Plenty of people prefer to be in. That is genuinely fine and does not change the price. If you do leave a key it is signed for and returned on the last afternoon.
Who turns up
Four of us. You will meet three.
Recent work
With the job named, not just the stars.
“They found a blown patch behind the chimney breast on the survey and quoted it separately rather than papering over it. The final invoice was eleven pounds under the estimate.”
Hall, stairs and landing · Barn Hill, Stamford · March 2026
“Our ceilings are 1963 Artex. Ellen tested them, they came back positive, and she skimmed over rather than sanding. She explained why in about a minute and it never became a drama.”
Two ceilings and full repaint · Ketton · November 2025
“Six sash windows, all of them burnt off badly by someone else in the eighties. They stripped back to sound timber, knotted, primed and put three coats on. Four years and no movement.”
Exterior joinery · Easton on the Hill · summer 2022
Things you can verify
Every one of these is a number you can go and check.
Surveys are free, and take about forty minutes.
We measure, test anything suspicious, and send a written schedule within three working days. Currently booking six to eight weeks ahead.
Your right to change your mind
Because we agree the job in your home, it is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. You have fourteen days to cancel, without giving a reason.
You get that in writing, on paper, with the model cancellation form, at the same time as the quote — and if you want us to start inside the fourteen days you sign a separate line asking us to. Nothing about a repaint is urgent, so none of the exemptions apply to us.