Painting and decorating: cost per m² in 2026 and what it includes

A painter measures the walls and ceilings they actually paint, not the floor area of your flat. In a typical flat that comes to roughly two and a half times the floor area. In an attic with sloping ceilings, or in rooms with high ceilings, it is more. Whether windows and doors are deducted depends on what you agree, and usually only larger openings count. The reason is simple: the reveals and the edges around them take extra work.

Rolling on the paint is only part of the job. What usually decides the time and the cost is everything that happens before the painter dips the roller for the first time:

• Condition of the walls: a sound white coat only needs a primer and a fresh coat. If old distemper is peeling or the walls are cracked, you are looking at scraping, taping cracks and skim coating.
• A furnished flat: furniture has to go into the middle of the room, everything gets covered, and there is a proper clean-up at the end. That takes longer than an empty flat or a new build.
• Colours: wherever two colours meet, the painter masks the line with tape and finishes it by brush. Strong shades often need a third coat.
• Height and shape of the room: high ceilings, staircases, sloping ceilings and alcoves slow the work down and sometimes call for scaffolding or a work platform.
• Details: reveals, corners, skirting, radiators and pipes take far more time per square metre than a plain wall.

When you compare quotes, check whether they cover only the painting or the preparation as well. Two quotes with the same rate per m² can describe completely different jobs.

Even expensive paint will not last on a badly prepared wall. That is why the wall gets checked before anyone starts painting. You can do a few simple tests yourself:

1. Tape test: stick a piece of masking or adhesive tape to the wall, press it down firmly and rip it off quickly. If paint comes away on the tape, the old coat is not holding, and a new layer would only add weight to it.
2. Palm test: run a dry hand over the wall. If your palm comes away with white dust, the paint is chalking. It needs to come off or be bound with a primer.
3. Water test: dampen a small patch with a wet sponge. If the paint softens and wipes off, it is old distemper or glue-bound paint. Emulsion does not belong on top of it.
4. Side light: hold a lamp or torch close to the wall so that the light runs along the surface. You will see bumps and dips that would stand out even more once painted.

In practice it often turns out that the stains cause more trouble than the wall itself. Water marks, nicotine, soot or grease bleed through ordinary paint, even after two coats. These spots get a coat of stain blocker first, and only then is the whole wall painted. With mould, find and deal with the cause first, which usually means damp or poor ventilation. Anti-mould paint on its own only puts the problem off for a while.

How long new plaster and skim coat need to dry

A damp surface is one of the main reasons paint peels and mould appears. New sand and cement or lime-based plaster takes weeks to dry, not days. Gypsum plaster and skim coats dry faster, but thickness, temperature and ventilation still make a big difference. The manufacturer's technical data sheet gives the drying time. Stick to it, even if your moving date is close.

Scraping is hard work, makes a lot of mess and is not always needed. If the old white coat is holding, clean the wall, prime it and paint. Scraping makes sense when:

• the old coat is peeling or sticks to the tape in the tape test,
• the wall has old distemper or glue-bound paint that softens with water,
• there are so many layers that they come off in flakes,
• there is damp or mould under the paint.

DIY guide: how to scrape off distemper

You can remove distemper yourself. It mainly takes patience and good protection for the room. Here is how:

1. Cover the floor and furniture with plastic sheeting, tape down the edges and switch off the circuit for the sockets and switches in the room.
2. Wet the wall with lukewarm water and a little washing-up liquid, using a sprayer or a wide brush, and leave it to soak for a few minutes.
3. Scrape off the softened paint with a filling knife or scraper held at a shallow angle so that it does not dig into the plaster.
4. Wash off what is left with clean water and let the wall dry completely.
5. Prime the dry wall, and only then move on to repairs and skim coating.

Oil-based paint, which older flats and stairwells often have as a washable lower band on the wall, does not soften with water. Sand it so that the new coat has something to grip. If it is thick or peeling, it is better to remove it. Wear a respirator when sanding old paint, because the dust can contain harmful substances. In older buildings, paint layers may contain lead, so a simple lead test before sanding is worth the effort. Some old textured wall and ceiling coatings may contain asbestos. Do not sand or scrape these until a sample has been tested, and where the law requires it, leave removal to a licensed specialist.

Not every crack is the same. Repair it the wrong way and in a few months it is back in the same place. For painting work, cracks fall into three groups:

• Hairline cracks in the paint: tiny, stable cracks in old paint or in the surface of a skim coat. Sand them, fill them with fine filler and prime.
• Moving cracks: these appear where ceiling panels meet in concrete panel blocks, in corners between wall and ceiling, at plasterboard joints or where different materials meet. The crack is opened up, cleaned and a reinforcing tape is pressed into the filler. Filler alone will not hold here.
• Structural cracks: diagonal cracks running from the corners of windows and doors, cracks that keep getting wider, or cracks through the whole wall. A painter does not fix these. A structural engineer needs to look at them first, otherwise they will come back even through tape. If you live in a flat, tell the building management or owners' association too, because the problem may affect the whole building. If the engineer suggests work on load-bearing walls or floors, check with your local building authority what approval you need under local building regulations.

How a crack is taped

1. Open up the crack with a scraper into a shallow V shape and pick out any loose material.
2. Clean off the dust and prime the area.
3. Apply a first layer of filler and press glass-fibre reinforcing tape into it so that it overlaps the crack on both sides.
4. Once dry, feather out the filler so that the edge of the repair blends smoothly into the wall around it.
5. Sand, check under side light and prime again before painting.

Acrylic caulk in joints

The joints between the wall and a door frame, window, skirting board or plasterboard often open up after painting into a thin dark line. That is why they get filled with paintable acrylic caulk, which stays flexible and takes paint. Silicone does not belong here, because paint will not stick to it. Neatly caulked joints are one of the quickest ways to tell whether a painter has taken care.

A skim coat brings uneven areas, old coatings and repaired spots together into one smooth surface. You do not always need to skim the whole wall, though. For a few holes from wall plugs or small dents, a local repair is enough. A full skim coat makes sense after stripping wallpaper or tiles, on wavy old walls, on new plasterboard and anywhere light from a window hits the wall at a low angle.

For plasterboard, surface quality is graded in levels Q1 to Q4. Under an ordinary matt paint, Q2 or Q3 is usual. For walls in strong side light, under glossy paint or with dark colours, Q4 is recommended, meaning the whole surface gets skimmed. A higher level means more coats, more sanding and more time, and that shows in the price.

How a wall is skim coated

1. Clean the wall, remove anything loose and prime.
2. Fit corner beads on external corners to protect them and help keep the edge straight.
3. Even out larger dips with a levelling compound first, because fine skim coat only goes on in thin layers.
4. Apply the skim coat with a stainless steel trowel or wide filling knife in one direction, and the second coat across it.
5. Once dry, sand with sanding mesh or paper, checking regularly under side light.
6. Remove all the dust and prime again before painting.

On the tin, look for two values classified under EN 13300. They let you compare paints from different brands:

• Wet scrub resistance: classes 1 to 5, and the lower the number, the tougher the paint. For kitchens, children's rooms and hallways, class 1 or 2 suits well, because you can wash it. In bedrooms and living rooms, a higher class number is usually enough.
• Hiding power: classes 1 to 4 at a stated coverage rate, and again class 1 covers better than class 4. A cheaper paint that covers poorly often needs an extra coat. What you save on the tin, you pay for in labour.

Strong colours, especially yellow, orange and red, cover less well than muted or dark tones. They often go over a base coat in a similar, lighter shade before the finishing coats. If you buy custom-tinted paint in several tins, mix them together before you start. There can be a slight difference in shade even between two tinting batches.

In old houses with damper walls and lime plaster, lime or silicate paint tends to work well. It lets water vapour through and resists mould naturally. It only bonds to a mineral surface, though, not to old emulsion. If you want to switch from emulsion to lime paint, the whole surface has to be scraped back.

An empty flat or a new unit goes faster. A painter can usually repaint a one-bedroom flat with sound walls in one to two working days. If scraping, taping cracks or skim coating is needed, the job stretches over several days, because each layer has to dry before the next one goes on.

If you are living in the flat, get ready beforehand:

• Empty shelves and cupboards, and take pictures and hooks off the walls.
• Clear space along the walls so that furniture can go into the middle of the room.
• Agree in advance whether covering the furniture and putting it back is part of the quote.
• Air the rooms during and after the work, but avoid draughts, which make paint dry too fast.

Paint goes on at room temperature. Manufacturers state a minimum air and surface temperature in their data sheets, usually around +5 °C. In an unheated new build in winter, painting waits until the heating is on.

On large areas in new builds and empty units, painters increasingly spray paint with high-pressure airless equipment. It is fast, and done properly it gives a very even finish with no roller marks. There are catches, though. Everything that should stay paint-free needs covering more carefully than for rolling. In a lived-in flat full of furniture, spraying is usually impractical. That is why painters often spray the surfaces and roll the final coat, so that small touch-ups are easier later.

Venetian plaster is a polished finish built up from several very thin layers. Once polished, it looks a lot like marble. Traditional Venetian plaster is lime-based, and synthetic versions also exist. It needs a completely flat surface, practically at Q4 level, because the shine shows up every imperfection. The result depends heavily on the skill of the person applying it, and it is hard to repair in patches. Before you order, ask to see work they have actually done.

Other decorative finishes, such as concrete or stone effects or metallic paints, are just as demanding. The price per m² is much higher than for ordinary painting, because most of it is hand work and experience, not material.

Look at the finished work in daylight, and then again with a lamp held to the side of the wall. Side light shows streaks and places where the paint has not covered evenly. Sort out small faults at handover, while the painter is still there and has the same paint. A later repair to one spot often shows up as a patch, which is why a complaint usually ends with the whole wall being repainted from corner to corner.

At handover, check that:

• The paint covers evenly, with no surface showing through and no stains or patches
• Edges between wall and ceiling and between colours are straight and clean
• Repaired cracks and taped areas do not show through the paint
• Joints at door frames, windows and skirting are caulked and painted
• Windows, floors, sockets and switches are clean and free of paint drips
• The painter has handed over leftover paint from the same batch, labelled for later touch-ups