Painters and decorators
How much does wallpapering cost? Build the price from the job
Do not copy a going rate for wallpapering. Build the price from the job in front of you: the rolls the room needs, the labour the survey shows, and separate lines for everything else. Even the paper count moves with the design. Graham & Brown says the right amount of wallpaper depends on the match type and the size of the pattern repeat.
Sources: [1] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29).
- Paper: the roll count from the label and the room, times your roll price. TM Interiors' method for non-standard and wide-width rolls divides the wall length by the roll width to find the drops needed, then divides the drops by the drops per roll to find the rolls, rounding up both times.
- Labour: the days the preparation and hanging will take once you have seen the walls, times your own rate.
- Separate lines: paste, lining paper, size or primer, sundries, access equipment, waste removal and anything you exclude.
Sources: [2] TM Interiors Limited (accessed 2026-09-29).
Only a survey fixes the labour. Until you have looked at the walls, a price is a guess about someone else's room.
Get the roll count right before you price the paper
Start with the roll size, because suppliers do not describe one standard. Wallpaper Shop says that in most cases a standard UK roll measures 10 metres long and 53 cm wide, and warns that not all rolls are identical, especially with designer brands. Farrow & Ball says every roll of its wallpaper is 10 m long and 53 cm wide. Graham & Brown's hanging guide gives the width of a roll as 52/53 cm. In its lining paper guide, B&Q describes a standard wallpaper roll as between 530 and 560 mm wide and 10 m long.
Sources: [3] Wallpaper Shop (accessed 2026-09-29); [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29); [5] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29); [6] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29).
Read the label on the paper you are pricing and use its length and width. If you have to price before you have seen the roll, write the size you assumed on the quote.
The count itself comes down to four steps.
- Drop length: the wall height plus trim. Wallpaper Shop's method adds at least 10 cm at the top and at the bottom for trimming.
- Drops per roll: the roll length divided by the drop length, as in Wallpaper Shop's method. Count whole drops only, because Wallpaper Shop says partial drops cannot be used.
- Drops needed: the total wall length divided by the roll width, rounded up to the next whole number, as in TM Interiors' method for non-standard and wide-width rolls.
- Rolls: the drops needed divided by the drops per roll, rounded up again, as in TM Interiors' method for non-standard and wide-width rolls.
Sources: [3] Wallpaper Shop (accessed 2026-09-29); [2] TM Interiors Limited (accessed 2026-09-29).
The match changes the drops per roll. Graham & Brown says that with a free match you can expect much less time on the job and much less waste. O'Neill's Decorating Centre says a drop match produces wastage. For a standard 2.4 m high room, Farrow & Ball estimates three drops per roll of its wallpaper for small pattern repeats and two for large pattern repeats.
Sources: [1] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29); [7] O'Neill's Decorating Centre (accessed 2026-09-29); [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29).
Losing a drop per roll adds rolls across the whole room, and every one of them goes into the price. The full counting method, with a room worked through, is in the roll-count guide. How to calculate wallpaper rolls with a pattern repeat
Choose a waste allowance and say which one you used
Suppliers frame the spare in different ways. Farrow & Ball recommends adding one more roll to its estimate to allow for trimming or mistakes when hanging. For non-standard and wide-width rolls, TM Interiors advises adding at least one extra drop, or an extra roll for complex rooms, for pattern matching, waste and on-site issues. Graham & Brown advises measuring for an extra 10% of waste.
Sources: [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29); [2] TM Interiors Limited (accessed 2026-09-29); [1] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29).
Doors and windows are handled differently too. TM Interiors says that with more expensive wallcoverings, decorators often exclude doors and windows from their initial measurements, then allow separately for the shorter lengths above doors and below windows.
Sources: [2] TM Interiors Limited (accessed 2026-09-29).
Whichever way you measure and whichever allowance you choose, write it on the quote, so the customer can see where the roll count came from.
Worked example (illustrative figures, not a real job or market price)
Every input below is invented to show the arithmetic. It is not a real job, a real customer or an observed market price, and the roll price and day rate are not suggestions. The room is 4 m × 3 m, so the wall run is 14 m, and the walls are 2.4 m high. The label is assumed to read 10 m × 0.53 m, at £30 a roll. Labour is 3.5 days at £200 a day. The drop and roll steps use the divide-and-round-up approach TM Interiors gives for non-standard and wide-width rolls, applied here to the assumed label.
Sources: [2] TM Interiors Limited (accessed 2026-09-29).
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Drop length | 2.4 m wall height + 0.2 m trim, which is Wallpaper Shop's at least 10 cm at the top and at the bottom | 2.6 m |
| Drops per roll | 10 m ÷ 2.6 m = 3.85, counted as whole drops only, as Wallpaper Shop's method divides roll length by drop length and uses only whole drops | 3 drops per roll, which matches Farrow & Ball's estimate for small repeats in a 2.4 m room |
| Drops needed | 14 m ÷ 0.53 m = 26.4, rounded up to the next whole number | 27 drops |
| Rolls | 27 ÷ 3 = 9, rounded up, plus Farrow & Ball's one more roll | 10 rolls |
| Rolls, large-repeat variant | Assumed label result of 2 drops per roll, consistent with Farrow & Ball's estimate for large repeats in a 2.4 m room: 27 ÷ 2 = 13.5, rounded up to 14, plus 1 | 15 rolls |
| Paper | 10 × £30 (large repeat: 15 × £30) | £300 (large repeat: £450) |
| Labour | 3.5 days × £200 | £700 |
| Total before excluded lines | £300 + £700 (large repeat: £450 + £700) | £1,000 (large repeat: £1,150) |
Sources: [3] Wallpaper Shop (accessed 2026-09-29); [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29).
The example makes three stated choices. The 14 m wall run goes straight across the door and window openings rather than excluding them. The spare is Farrow & Ball's one more roll rather than Graham & Brown's extra 10% of waste. The 2 drops per roll in the large-repeat variant is an assumed label result, consistent with Farrow & Ball's own estimate for large repeats, not a general rule.
Sources: [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29); [1] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29).
Labour stays at 3.5 days in the large-repeat variant only to isolate the difference the paper makes. The split of those days, 1 for stripping, 1 for cross-lining and 1.5 for hanging, is also invented. The lines exist because the example assumes the survey found old paper and poor walls: B&Q says chemical strippers suit one or two layers of wallpaper in one room, and recommends hanging lining paper horizontally, which it calls cross-lining, if wallpaper will go over it.
Sources: [8] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29); [6] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29).
Not in either total: paste, lining paper, size or primer, sundries, access equipment, waste removal and your VAT basis. Each one goes on the quote as its own line or as a stated exclusion.
Survey findings that change the labour
The survey is where the labour comes from. The table maps what you find to the work it adds. Put each one on the quote as a task, a material or a drying interval; how long it takes depends on the walls in front of you.
| What you find | What it adds to the job | Whose guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Existing wallpaper | Stripping, with the method chosen by the layers and the area: chemical strippers for one or two layers in one room or a small area such as a feature wall, electric steamers for large or stubborn areas. Scoring so the steam or solution can penetrate, then rinsing the wall and letting it dry out completely. | B&Q |
| Plaster damaged by steaming | Making good before papering. B&Q warns that holding a steam plate on the wall too long lets steam penetrate and damage the plaster. Fill and sand the damage as for cracks and imperfections below. | B&Q |
| Cracks and imperfections | Filling and sanding them, then cleaning the wall with detergent or sugar soap. | Graham & Brown |
| Fresh plaster or plasterboard | Either sizing or priming. Graham & Brown advises sizing fresh plaster with a diluted paste solution, says a wall needs sizing even for paste-the-wall papers, especially plaster or plasterboard, and says to let the size dry before papering. B&Q instead advises a universal primer the day before on plaster, plasterboard or wood. | Graham & Brown (sizing); B&Q (priming) |
| Gloss or silk paint | Sanding the walls, then applying a universal primer. | B&Q |
| Poor walls, or new paper at risk of shrinking | Lining paper. B&Q says lining prevents new wallpaper shrinking and leaving gaps between the lengths, that grades range from 800 (thinnest) to 2000 (thickest), that a wall in bad condition needs 2000 grade, and recommends 1400 if unsure. B&Q recommends hanging it horizontally, called cross-lining, under wallpaper, and removing any existing layers of wallpaper first. Graham & Brown says cross lining keeps the lining paper seams and the wallpaper seams out of the same position. | B&Q; Graham & Brown |
| Radiators on papered walls | Taking them off: B&Q says radiators would ideally be removed before wallpapering. | B&Q |
Sources: [8] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29); [5] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29); [9] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29); [6] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29).
Cross-lining is a job of its own, with its own paper, paste and time, so price it as a separate line. The hanging method is in the lining paper guide. How to hang lining paper
Paper type, paste and batches
The paper type changes the hanging. Graham & Brown says paste-the-wall paper is hung by applying paste to the wall, after the sizing layer has dried, instead of to the paper, and claims this can cut the time it takes to wallpaper a room in half. That is the manufacturer's own claim, not a measured rate for your job. For traditional paper, Graham & Brown says the paper must rest after pasting for the time given on the roll.
Sources: [5] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29).
Price the paste from the pack you will use. Graham & Brown says the paste brand does not matter as long as it is the correct type for traditional or paste-the-wall paper. Farrow & Ball says one tube of its wallpaper paste can hang up to five rolls of its wallpaper, and B&Q lists a 230 g pack of Solvite Paste the wall Wallpaper Adhesive as a 5 rolls pack. Read the pack for the product and paper on your job.
Sources: [5] Graham & Brown (accessed 2026-09-29); [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29); [10] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29).
Check the batches before you start. Wallpaper Shop says rolls are made in batches and each batch may differ slightly in colour, and Farrow & Ball says its traditional techniques mean the pattern and colour of its papers can differ slightly between batches. B&Q advises checking that all rolls have the same batch number printed on the label. If you add a spare roll, as Farrow & Ball recommends, keep it from the same batch.
Sources: [11] Wallpaper Shop (accessed 2026-09-29); [4] Farrow & Ball (accessed 2026-09-29); [9] B&Q (accessed 2026-09-29).
Access on stairwells and high walls
Access is a price line, and what it costs depends on the risk and on how long the work keeps someone up a ladder. HSE says ladders can be a sensible and practical option for low-risk, short-duration tasks. HSE guidance recommends alternative equipment if a task would require staying up a leaning ladder or stepladder for more than 30 minutes at a time, and HSE says short duration is not the deciding factor: risk must be considered first.
Sources: [12] HSE (accessed 2026-09-29); [13] HSE (accessed 2026-09-29).
Price the access the job actually needs once you have considered the risk, and show it as its own line. This is a pricing point, not a method for working at height.
Write the assumptions into the quote
A quote that shows its assumptions is easier to check, and easier to change when the job turns out different. Before it goes out, make sure it states:
- the roll size, as read from the label
- the match type and the pattern repeat
- the roll count and the waste allowance you used
- the batch, and that any spare comes from the same batch
- which preparation is included, from stripping to lining
- the access equipment allowed for
- who supplies the paper, paste and other materials
- what is excluded
- your VAT basis