5 things a painter/decorator can do for you

Some of us enjoy nothing more than spending weekend mornings at a DIY store and then the rest of our time off painting, papering and sprucing up the home. But home decorating is not for all of us, and can be the cause of bank holiday arguments, not to mention mess, paper cuts, paint spills and the odd visit to A&E.

Despite this, many of us shy away from using a professional painter or decorator, because we consider it an unnecessary expense, or because we can’t see what they can offer us. However, a professional painter and decorator can offer more than just the ability to hang wallpaper without it falling down, or painting a wall without painting the sofa, pets and kids as well. Here, we explain what the pros have to offer.

Help you select colours

Professional painters and decorators will already have decorated hundreds of homes before they arrive at your door. So, they’ll know a thing or two about colour, finishes and what will work well where. If you have a colour scheme in mind, then your painter and decorator should be able to tell you what will look good in your home and what might not work so well. Even if you want to buy materials yourself, your decorator will be able to advise on which paints to buy in which finishes, as well as where to get your wallpaper for a good price.

Break your habits to freshen things up

We tend to settle into set patterns in our homes. Once we’ve established where the sofa and the dining table go, then chances are they won’t move much all the time we live in a home. Often, it’s only when we’re looking to move that we switch these items around. A good decorator can look at your home anew and add new ideas into the mix. They’ll know what suits a home like yours and will be able to offer gentle changes or radical solutions, such as switching your living room and dining room around, or knocking rooms through.

Read about how to avoid some common design mistakes.

Find the impossible

If you have a period home, then you could face months of searching for certain items in salvage yards. Likewise, that set of curtains or that wooden screen may take ages to track down online. Professional decorators will always have an idea of where to find a ceiling rose or skirting that matches yours. And if they don’t then they’ll know where to get something similar or have it custom-made. You are buying their experience and contacts along with their decorative skills.

Sort those small jobs

When you have professional painters and decorators in, you can also ask them to do small jobs that you wouldn’t have necessarily wanted to hire someone for. This is often the kind of patching up and re-painting work that you won’t ever get around to yourself. Even if you don’t have the original paint for the kitchen, they should be able to match a colour to that wall that needed repainting after you left your nephew in the room with his crayons or a marker pen. They can also patch holes in walls, so that the cold and pests cannot get in.

Advise you on putting a whole scheme together

Painters and decorators can sometimes be seen as unskilled jack-of-all-trades workers, but in reality good painters and decorators are proud of their work and knowledgeable about far more than where to find cheap trade magnolia. Many will have worked on whole schemes for clients, including sourcing furniture alongside the colour scheme, shelving and flooring. Be sure to use their knowledge, and ask to see previous jobs. Good tradespeople will be proud to chat about the work they’ve done and share photos of the work they’ve done in the past.