Booking Interior Decorating Before Christmas: A Realistic Timeline

Everybody wants the house looking sharp by Christmas. Almost nobody works out when the painter actually needs to start.

It sounds like a small thing. It is the difference between a calm December and a house full of dust sheets while the in-laws arrive.

Here is a realistic way to plan interior decorating around a deadline, whether the date in your head is the first weekend of December or the day before Christmas Eve.

Start with the date, then count backwards

Pick the day you want the room finished. Not the day the painter finishes, the day the room is back in use, with the furniture in place, the pictures up and the paint smell gone. Those two dates are further apart than most people expect.

For a typical bedroom or hallway, allow a week between the last coat going on and the room feeling properly normal again. Paint feels dry to the touch fairly quickly, but it keeps hardening for a good while afterwards, and furniture pushed hard against a fresh wall can mark it or stick to it.

How long do rooms really take?

It depends on the size of the room and what condition the walls are in. As a rough guide, and only a rough one:

• A bedroom, walls and ceiling: often one to two days, plus woodwork.
• A hallway, stairs and landing: usually longer than people think, because the stairwell needs access equipment and the woodwork is fiddly. Three days or more is not unusual.
• A lounge or dining room: around two to three days, depending on prep.
• A whole ground floor: commonly one to two weeks.

Cracked plaster, old wallpaper that needs stripping or a ceiling with a nicotine stain will stretch any of those figures. Good preparation is the slow part. It is also the part that makes the finish last.

A sensible timeline for a December finish

Work backwards and it tends to look something like this.

Late October. Decide which rooms matter most. Be honest here. Doing two rooms well beats rushing five.

Early November. Arrange for someone to come and look at the rooms in person. A decent quote needs a visit, because a few photos cannot show a hairline crack, a bulging patch of plaster or a damp corner.

Mid-November. Settle the colours and finishes, and order anything that takes time to arrive. Specialist paint, a particular wallpaper or a custom tint can take days or weeks, which catches out more people than any other step.

Late November to early December. The work itself, with a few spare days built in. Prep, then primer, then coats, with time between each for drying. Rushing the drying is how you end up with sticky, streaky walls.

One week before your date. Finished, snagged and left alone to settle.

If that feels tight, it is because it is. The nearer to Christmas you leave it, the fewer options you will have.

Things that quietly add time

Wallpaper

Hanging paper involves stripping what is already there, repairing and lining the walls, then letting adhesive settle before anything else is done. Patterns that need matching take longer again. Our article on how long wallpaper hanging really takes goes through the real numbers, and it is worth reading before you promise anyone a finished room.

Moving furniture

A room has to be cleared, or at least pulled into the middle and covered. If the room is full of heavy wardrobes, that is a job in itself. Do as much as you can beforehand, and tell whoever is quoting what is staying put.

Damp and condensation

If there is mould on a wall, nobody should paint over it. It has to be dealt with first, and the cause found. We explain the process in our guide to condensation, damp and mould. Better to know in early November than discover it halfway through the job.

Cold, damp weather

Short, cold days slow drying. Keep the heating steady and ventilate sensibly, and it is perfectly manageable. Ignore it and finishes take longer to cure.

What to have ready for the first visit

You do not need to know exactly what you want. It helps to know roughly what you do not like. Have these to hand:

• Which rooms, and which parts of them: walls, ceilings, woodwork, doors.
• Any known problems, such as cracks, stains or draughts.
• The date you are working towards, and how flexible it is.
• Photos of colours or finishes you like, even rough ones from a magazine.

For an idea of what drives the price, our guide to painting costs in Bury St Edmunds explains the main factors without any smoke and mirrors.

If time is short

Sometimes the date is simply closer than you would like. In that case, be selective. Choose the rooms guests will actually see, usually the hall, the lounge and perhaps the dining room, and leave the rest until January.

Do the walls and ceilings first, and the woodwork afterwards if you have to. Do not skip the preparation to save a day. A rushed finish over poor preparation looks worse than an older wall left alone.

Be upfront about your deadline, too. It is far better to hear “that is tight” in early November than to find out on the twentieth of December.

The practical bit

If you have a date in mind and it is getting closer, get a free quote and tell us what it is. We will give you an honest view on whether it is achievable. We cover Bury St Edmunds and the villages around it, and you can read more about our interior painting and decorating before you get in touch.