Across the Wirral
Painting and decorating, across the Wirral
The colour is the easy part. The preparation is the job.
Interior and exterior painting, wallpapering, woodwork, spraying and commercial work from Birkenhead to Meols. We price the preparation separately so you can see what you are actually buying.
- Preparation priced separately
- Floors and furniture covered
- We say when paint is not the fix
Preparation itemised
Mon to Fri 8 to 6
Dust sheets before tins
Before you ring round
Why two decorators quote completely different numbers
Ask three decorators for a price on the same hallway and you can get three numbers that are not in the same range. That is almost never about the paint, and it is almost never about greed. It is about how much preparation each of them has included.
Painting a sound, flat, recently decorated wall is quick. Bringing back a wall that has been papered four times, filled badly twice and has a hairline crack running out of the door frame is not, and the finish you get is decided almost entirely by that work rather than by what goes on afterwards. The same is true outside, only more so: a coating on a damp or chalky wall fails whatever it cost.
So every quote we write splits the two. You can see what the preparation is, what it costs, and what you are buying if you take less of it. Sometimes less is the right answer and we will say so.
What we do
Eleven things we do, each with its own page. If what you need is not on the list it is probably not our trade, and we will say so rather than take it on.
Interior painting
Rooms, hallways, stairs and ceilings, with the preparation priced separately.
Read moreExterior painting
Whole exteriors, with the weather side specified as its own job.
Read moreMasonry and render painting
Render, pebbledash and masonry, stabilised and treated before any colour.
Read moreWallpapering
Hung, pattern matched and finished, on walls that have been prepared for it.
Read moreWoodwork and staircases
Skirtings, doors, sashes and balustrades, where the sanding is the job.
Read moreSpray painting
A finish with no brush marks, for surfaces that deserve one.
Read moreKitchen respray
Doors and frames resprayed in place, for a fraction of a new kitchen.
Read moreuPVC spraying
Windows, doors, conservatories and garage doors recoloured, not replaced.
Read moreCommercial painting
Units, offices, shopfronts and communal areas, worked around trading.
Read moreFence and garden painting
Fencing, sheds and garden joinery, treated rather than just coloured.
Read morePainting prices
What actually moves a decorating price, and what a quote should tell you.
Read moreHow a job runs
- 1You send the details
Form, phone or WhatsApp. Which rooms or which elevations, and a photo of anything that looks like it needs more than a coat.
- 2We come and look
The question is never the colour, it is the surface. What is on it now, whether it is sound, and how much has to come off first.
- 3You get it in writing
Preparation and finish coats priced separately, so you can see where the days actually go and decide what you want.
- 4Covered, cut in, coated, cleared
Floors and furniture protected before anything is opened, and the room put back at the end rather than left for you.
What the work looks like
The slots below are placeholders. The pictures elsewhere on this site are example images of the kind of work described, each one labelled as such, and they are not photographs of our own jobs. Nothing here is borrowed from anybody else's. Our own photographs go in as jobs are finished and customers are happy for us to use them.
A cut in line between wall and ceiling, close enough to judge
Woodwork sanded back and primed, before the finish coat
A rendered elevation part repainted, old and new both in frame
Wallpaper hung on a chimney breast, pattern matched at the seam
A sprayed kitchen door, showing the finish with no brush marks
A room covered and masked before any tin is opened
Areas we cover
Twelve towns across the peninsula. What decides a decorating job here is what the last coat was, how old it is and which way the wall faces, and that is genuinely different in Meols from how it is in Bebington.
Across the Wirral peninsula
The west side and the coast
Questions people ask before they ring
How much does a painter and decorator cost on the Wirral?
It is priced by the state of the surface rather than by the room, which is why a hallway can cost more than a bedroom twice its size. A sound wall needing two coats is the cheap end. Woodwork under decades of oil paint, or an exterior that has to be stripped and stabilised first, is a different order of work. We give you the number in writing with the preparation itemised separately, so you can see which you are buying.
Do I have to move the furniture?
No. We move what needs moving and cover what stays, and both are in the price rather than discovered on the first morning. If a room is full of things that are fragile or valuable it is worth saying so at the quote so the time is allowed for.
How long before I can use the room?
Water based finishes are touch dry quickly and usable the same day. Oil based finishes on woodwork take longer and smell for longer, which is why most interior woodwork now goes in water based unless there is a reason not to. We will tell you which we are proposing and why.
Can you paint over wallpaper?
Sometimes, if it is sound, well stuck and not textured or vinyl. Often it is a false economy: paint shrinks slightly as it dries and can lift seams that were holding fine, and then you are stripping it anyway with a coat of paint on top making it harder.
What time of year can you paint outside?
Most of it, with sense. Masonry and exterior wood have a minimum application temperature and must not be rained on before they have formed a film, so winter work on this coast is a weather window rather than a date. We would rather tell you that than start and lose a coat.
Do you do small jobs?
Yes. One room, one ceiling, a front door. The thing worth knowing is that setting up and covering costs much the same whatever the size, so one room is rarely a tenth of the price of ten.
Which parts of the Wirral do you cover?
Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Bromborough, Heswall, West Kirby, Hoylake, Caldy, Greasby, Irby, Meols and Moreton.
What will you tell me not to do?
Paint over a damp patch, paint over algae, paint a through coloured render, or put a dark colour on a west facing gable and expect it to match in three years. All four come up most months.
Tell us what state it is in
A photo of the worst wall is more useful than a description of all of them, and it is usually enough for a first answer.
Get in touch
Tell us which rooms, or which elevations, and roughly what state they are in. A photograph on the form answers most of the preparation questions before anybody rings you back.
- Phone0151 453 8836
- Emailcontact@wirralpainting.com
- WhatsAppSend us a photo of the job
- Based inWirral, Merseyside
- HoursMon to Fri 8 to 6, Sat 8 to 2, closed Sunday