If you are weighing up a full redecoration of a three bedroom house, the honest answer is that it depends on what state the walls are in and how much of the house you want doing. That said, there are sensible ranges you can plan around, and this guide sets them out based on what decorators in West Yorkshire typically charge in 2026.
For a standard three bed semi or terrace, a full internal redecoration by a professional decorator usually lands somewhere between £3,500 and £7,500 including labour and trade materials. The lower end assumes sound walls, emulsion throughout and a quick freshen of woodwork. The upper end covers full preparation, new paint on every ceiling, wall, skirting, door and architrave, plus hallways and stairs.
Around Keighley, Bingley and the wider Bradford district, labour rates tend to be a little below London and the South East. A self employed decorator here will generally charge £180 to £260 a day, or £1,000 to £1,300 a week, and a three bed house normally takes one decorator two to three weeks to finish properly.
Materials add roughly 15 to 25 per cent on top of labour. Trade emulsion such as Dulux Trade or Johnstone's typically costs £35 to £55 per 10 litres, and a whole house uses around 40 to 60 litres of emulsion plus 5 to 10 litres of satinwood or gloss for woodwork.
Most people find it easier to budget one room at a time, especially if the whole house does not need doing at once. These are realistic ranges for walls, ceiling and woodwork with two coats, assuming surfaces are in reasonable order.
Preparation is where the real cost sits, not the painting. A house that has been smoked in, has flaking paint on the woodwork, or has old woodchip or Anaglypta wallpaper to strip can easily add 30 to 50 per cent to the labour time. Stripping wallpaper from a single room typically costs £150 to £300 before any paint goes on.
Plaster condition matters too. Many older stone terraces in Keighley and the Aire valley have been patched over the years, and a decorator may need to fill, sand and mist coat bare plaster. If the walls are genuinely poor, it is often cheaper to have a plasterer skim them first than to pay a decorator to spend days filling.
Other things that move a quote: dark or strong colours needing three coats, feature wallpaper (hanging costs £150 to £350 per wall for standard paper, more for wide or paste the wall designs), high ceilings in Victorian properties, and whether you are moving the furniture out or the decorator has to work around it.
You do not have to do everything at once. Prioritise the hall, stairs and landing and the living room, which are the rooms that make the most visible difference, and leave bedrooms for a later phase. A decorator is usually happy to quote both ways.
Empty the rooms as far as you can before the start date, take down curtains and pictures, and agree colours before the job begins. Changing your mind mid job is the single most common reason a quote creeps up. Buying paint yourself rarely saves money because trade accounts get better prices, but it is worth asking whether your decorator prefers you to supply it.
Always get a written quote that lists what is included: number of coats, whether woodwork and ceilings are in, how much filling is expected, and who clears up. A cheap quote that turns out to be walls only with one coat is not cheap at all.
One decorator working full time will usually take two to three weeks for a full internal job. Two decorators can often finish in seven to ten working days, which many families prefer as it causes less disruption.
Materials alone for a three bed house come to roughly £500 to £900, so you would save on labour, but it will take a non professional four to six weeks of evenings and weekends. The finish on woodwork and ceilings is where most DIY jobs show, so a common compromise is doing bedrooms yourself and paying for the hall, stairs and living room.
Yes, usually. The stairwell needs a platform or scaffold tower to reach safely, takes longer to cut in, and has more woodwork per square metre than any other part of the house, which is why it is priced separately from standard rooms.
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