Get local quotes to paint the hall, stairs and landing
The halls, stairs and landing is an important set of rooms in every home. Your entrance hall is the first thing your guests will see, so making sure it’s decorated to a high standard is the perfect way to make the right impression and set the tone for the aesthetics of your house. The stairs and landing are spaces that you and your family will move through regularly, so why suffer poorly decorated rooms when you can get them professionally decorated?
If you’re looking to get your hall stairs and landing decorated in 2023, one thing you might be worried about is the price. That’s why we’ve written this price guide, covering how much you should expect to pay to get your hall stairs and landing decorated, including what kinds of things will affect the price. The average cost to paint your hall, stairs and landing is £800 – but read on to find out more about what’s involved.
How long does it take to decorate the hall, stairs and landing?
As with every decorating project, the price you’ll pay will vary significantly depending on the size of the room and the amount of extra work that’s required. In the table to the right of this page, we’ve included the average price for getting a hall stairs and landing decorated across the country. As labour costs make up a large part of any decorating quote, the price for labour varying across the country will make a big difference to the quote – with those in London paying significantly more.
As this is only for an average sized hall stairs and landing, we’ve made a set of assumptions to get to this price. For example, it doesn’t include painting any woodwork like bannisters, and it only includes painting using simple ladders – those with multiple flights of stairs increasing the height of the stairwell will have to pay more.
What affects the cost of painting the stairs and hallway?
So, how do you figure out how much you’re likely to pay for a hall stairs and landing decorating project in your own home? Well, there’s a number of different factors that will affect the price, so for peace of mind it’s worth spending some time thinking through each of these and how they will impact how much you’re likely to pay.
The size of the room
The biggest factor that will affect the price of your decorating project will be the size of the room. More wall space to cover means you’ll pay more – it’s as simple as that. Because the hall stairs and landing do tend to be big rooms anyway, this area will be more expensive than most other rooms in your home.
So, think about the size of your hall stairs and landing. For smaller rooms, you could get them decorated for only around £400-500. However, for large hallways and landing areas, you could be paying more like £1000-1200.
The height of the room
Unlike many other rooms in your home, decorating the stairwell is likely to involve working at height. If you have an ordinary, two storey home, it’s likely that the painters and decorators you choose will be able to paint it using just a ladder or a simple platform system. However, if you have multiple storeys in your home, or a particularly tall stairway, additional equipment for working at height may be required, and this will naturally increase the price – in some cases quite significantly.
Cost to paint stair spindles, bannisters and newel post or risers and treads
Another factor that will affect the price of your hall stairs and landing decorating project is whether or not you’d like any woodwork painting, like the spindles, bannisters or newel posts. This can be fiddly work, so expect to add around £100-£200 onto the total price of your job if you’d like your decorators to paint these parts of the stairs. Another popular option is to paint the stair risers to break up the brown wood colour and stain the wooden treads with varnish to provide a hard wearing natural finish.
Any other extras like doors, coving or skirting boards or other decorative jobs
On top of the woodwork, you may also want to ask your decorators to paint doors, coving or skirting boards in the hall stairs and landing area. This will also of course add some cost to the overall job – expect to pay an extra £100 at least for these jobs, and possibly more depending on the scale.
However, it’s usually worth getting these extra bits sorted at the same time as a bigger job, like painting a room. Asking painters and decorators to sort out these extras will save you money, as they won’t charge as much as if you get them painted as a standalone job. So, it’s definitely worth considering if you have any extra painting and decorating work you’d like to get sorted at the same time as your hall stairs and landing project.h3
Standard of the walls
As with every decorating project, the standard of the walls in your hall stairs and landing will affect the price, as this will decide how much remedial work your decorators have to carry out before they can start painting. When you’re applying paint to a wall, it’s vital that the wall is smooth and flat – any imperfections can cause the paint to flake off over time and not properly adhere.
So, if your walls are in poor condition, expect to pay another 20-40% of the price in additional labour to repair them. This could involve filling and plastering over any cracks or holes, as well as sanding and rubbing down the wall to bring it back to a nice smooth surface.
Removing wallpaper
Finally, if you’ve already got wallpaper hung in your hall stairs and landing, expect the removal of this to add another £100 or so to the overall cost, potentially more if it’s a particularly large room. Removing wallpaper can be quite labour intensive, but a professional will be able to do it quickly and without damaging the wall behind, so it’s worth discussing with the tradespeople that come out and quote for your work. You might be tempted to remove the wallpaper yourself, which is certainly possible – but do be aware that, as we’ve just mentioned, any imperfections to your walls can be costly to get repaired.
Adding colour to a hallway can make the space look bigger or add a dramatic flare to the room. Don't be afraid to choose dark colours or even colours that you might not normally be drawn to, that will suit the shape and layout of the room.
Estimates for common painter & decorator jobs;
| Job | Estimate |
| Cost to wallpaper a room | £550 per room |
| Cost to stain or oil decking | £120 |
| Cost to remove wallpaper | £354 per room |
| Cost to paint and decorate a house interior | £3700 |
| Cost to paint or stain a fence | £220 |
| Cost to paint soffits and fascias | £550 |
| Cost to sand down and repaint skirting boards | £170 per room |
| Cost to sand down and repaint interior doors | £200 per door |
| Cost to paint house exterior | £1600 |
| Cost to paint the hallway, stairs and landing | £800 |
| Cost to paint the garage | £310 |
| Cost to paint a front door | £352 |
| Cost to decorate a bedroom | £380 |
| Cost to paint office, business premises or warehouse | £1340 |
| Cost to paint a ceiling | £213 per room |
| Cost to paint kitchen cabinet doors | £452 |
| Cost to paint a bathroom | £290 |
| Cost to paint and decorate a room | £450 |
| Cost to paint and decorate a living room | £710 |