3 Bedroom House Painting Costs SA 2026 - Get Free Quotes

Painting a Three Bedroom Home in South Australia

Three bedrooms is the standard against which South Australian painters price most residential work, and it is the size where the economics finally start working in your favour. Interior repainting of a three bedroom home runs $3,500 to $9,000, and a full exterior repaint of a standard three or four bedroom house $5,000 to $10,500. The fixed overhead that makes a two bedroom home expensive per room is spread across enough surface here to stop dominating the figure.

That is why a whole-house repaint works out well below the sum of the individual room prices. It is also why staging the work across two years is poor value.

The spread within those ranges is wide because a three bedroom house in this state can be almost anything. A 1960s Housing Trust home in Salisbury and an 1890s villa in Norwood both have three bedrooms, and the second can cost twice the first for identical floor area. Ceiling height, wall construction and trim volume account for most of that gap.

None of them are visible from a floor plan or a street photograph. That is why a site inspection is not a formality on a house this size.

This page sets out what the work costs across South Australia, the five variables that actually move a quote, how the housing stock differs across the state and what belongs in a written scope. It treats interior and exterior separately because they behave differently, and the exterior figure depends far more on substrate and condition than on floor area. It also covers timing, since when you paint changes the price as much as what you paint. Read the section on empty against occupied before booking anything.

Three quotes is the right number on a house this size and they are worth getting properly. On straightforward modern housing they tend to cluster within a few hundred dollars, and where one is a clear outlier the reason is almost always scope rather than margin. On older Adelaide housing the spread is genuinely wider and reflects what each painter found when they looked. A quote given without anybody standing in the rooms is an estimate rather than a price.

Figures throughout are indicative South Australian market rates for 2026. They assume standard residential work in reasonable condition, and any property with structural cracking, salt damp, failed plaster or lead paint carries additional work before painting begins. General interior work across a house sits at interior house painting. Outside work is covered separately at exterior house painting.

Interior Costs Room by Room

Breaking a three bedroom interior into rooms shows where the money goes and makes a quote far easier to read. Large open walls are sometimes sprayed rather than rolled, covered at spray painting. Bedroom walls run $350 to $700 each, and a bedroom including its ceiling $500 to $1,100, so three bedrooms with ceilings land around $1,500 to $3,300. That is usually less than half the total on a whole-house repaint.

The rest sits in living areas, circulation space, wet areas and trim. Owners consistently underestimate the last of those.

Living and dining rooms run $700 to $1,600 each and are the largest single lines on most three bedroom quotes. Open plan living that flows into a kitchen or meals area is priced as one larger space rather than several small ones, which generally works in your favour. Window count matters more here than room size, since every frame and reveal is cut in by hand.

Ask whether window frames sit with the walls or with the trim. Window frames are sometimes quoted with the walls and sometimes with the trim.

Cabinet respraying sits at kitchen cabinet painting. Kitchens run $500 to $1,200 and bathrooms or laundries $350 to $800 each. Both are small rooms that take disproportionate time because of the cutting in around fixtures, cabinetry and tiling. Ceilings in wet areas deserve a mould resistant product rather than standard ceiling white, which costs very little more and addresses the surface that fails first.

Condensation rather than leaks is the usual cause of bathroom ceiling mould in South Australian homes. That specification sits at mould resistant coatings.

Hallways and stairwells run $400 to $1,200 and are the lines most often left out of a first quote. In a three bedroom home the hallway touches every other room, so omitting it leaves a visible boundary at every doorway. It is also almost entirely edges and doorways rather than open wall, which makes it slower per square metre than a bedroom. A single ceiling on its own runs $250 to $550. Including the hallway from the start avoids adding it later at a worse rate.

Trim is the category that separates a walls-only quote from a full repaint. Skirtings and architraves run $180 to $400 a room and internal doors $120 to $280 painted both sides, so a three bedroom home with ten doors and full trim throughout can carry $2,000 or more in that line alone. Solvent based trim enamels have largely given way to waterborne ones here, which resist yellowing under this light. The trade-off is a longer cure before doors can be closed against their frames. Ask when doors can be closed against their frames rather than when they are dry.

Why the Whole House Costs Less Than the Sum of Its Rooms

Add up the individual room prices on a three bedroom home and you will arrive at a figure well above any whole-house quote you receive, and the gap is real rather than a discount. A painting job carries a large fixed component in travel, unloading, floor protection, masking, mixing, cleaning down and packing up, and that component is paid once on a whole-house job rather than once per visit. On a room-by-room approach you pay it every time. Across five separate visits the difference runs to thousands.

Continuity is the second saving and it is less obvious. A crew working through a whole house moves to the next room while the last one dries, so the fixed drying time between coats stops being dead time. In a single-room job that same gap is simply waiting. It is the main reason a whole-house repaint finishes far faster per room than a series of individual bookings would.

Colour matching is the third and it is a quality argument rather than a financial one. Paint applied a year apart does not match even from the same formulation, because the first coat has already begun to shift under light and cleaning. Owners who paint the bedrooms this year and the living areas next year frequently end up with a visible difference at the junction. Doing the house at once avoids the problem entirely. Avoiding a visible colour boundary is worth more than the staging saves.

The practical conclusion is to price the whole house even where the budget may not stretch to it. Getting a full quote itemised by room lets you remove lines to meet a figure rather than abandoning the project, and it shows you what each element actually costs. Most painters will quote this way when asked, and very few volunteer it. Ask for preparation, walls, ceilings, trim and doors as separate lines. That structure is what makes a quote readable.

Where staging is unavoidable, group by area rather than by room. Doing all the bedrooms in one visit and all the living areas in another repeats the setup twice rather than five times, and it keeps the colour boundaries at natural junctions like doorways. Tell the painter the constraint at quoting stage so they can sequence it properly. Knowing the plan in advance lets a painter stage it far better than discovering it mid-job.

Exterior Repainting Costs

A full exterior repaint of a standard three or four bedroom South Australian house runs $5,000 to $10,500, with larger or heavily detailed single storey homes reaching $8,000 to $15,000. By wall area that works out at $18 to $40 a square metre. Unlike interior work, the position within that range is driven far more by substrate and condition than by the size of the house. Two identical homes in the same street can differ by thousands. The difference is what the walls are doing.

Preparation accounts for most of the variation and most of the labour. A wall that needs washing and spot priming sits at the bottom of the range, and one that is chalking, cracked, previously poorly patched or carrying a failed coating sits at the top. Chalking is the common South Australian condition and it is easy to test yourself by rubbing a dark cloth across a north or west facing wall. Powder on the cloth means the binder has broken down under ultraviolet exposure. A stabilising primer is then required and any quote omitting one has understated the job.

Substrate changes the specification as well as the price. Rendered and brick veneer homes are the straightforward case, while weatherboard and clad homes sit higher at $6,000 to $16,000 because every board has a top and bottom edge cut in by hand. Solid stone is the case that needs real care, since bluestone, sandstone and limestone walls need to breathe and an impermeable coating traps moisture inside them. Painting previously unpainted stone is also effectively permanent. Older building fabric is covered at heritage house painting.

Pricing eaves, fascia and trim on their own at $1,500 to $4,000 is worth asking for alongside the full figure. On a house where the walls remain sound, refreshing the trim alone lifts the appearance considerably for a fraction of a full repaint. Eaves deteriorate first because they are shaded and rarely washed by rain. On pre-1990 homes they may be asbestos cement rather than timber, and workplace duties are administered by SafeWork SA, which changes the preparation entirely and must be established before anybody sands anything.

Access adds the last layer and it scales with the building rather than the floor area. A single storey house on a level block needs trestles and planks, while a sloping Adelaide Hills site can require scaffolding on what is nominally a single storey home because one elevation sits well above ground. Scaffold hire and erection is a fixed cost that lands on the job regardless of how many square metres follow. Ask for it as its own line rather than absorbed into the rate.

The Five Variables That Move a Quote

Whether the house is occupied is the largest single variable on a three bedroom interior and the only one entirely within your control. An empty house is masked once and worked through continuously, while an occupied one needs furniture moved twice in every room and each space made liveable again each evening. The gap frequently runs to a third of the interior total. On a $6,000 job that is $2,000 for furniture. It is worth arranging a vacancy where one is possible at all.

Wall condition is the second and it is established by touching rather than looking. Surfaces needing only washing and light sanding sit at one price, and those with cracking, water damage, failed previous patching or drummy plaster sit at another entirely. Drummy plaster is the one that catches owners out, since it looks perfectly sound and cannot be surface filled. A painter locates it by knuckling across the surface and listening for the sound to go hollow. Repair work ahead of coating sits at paint preparation and repairs.

Colour change is the third and it is routinely underestimated. Moving from a dark colour to a pale one needs a blocking primer or a third coat, adding a full extra pass across every wall in the room, and a strong feature wall frequently needs the same treatment on its own. Repainting in a similar shade often covers in two coats. Name the intended colour at quoting stage rather than after, since it changes the coat count and therefore the labour.

Ceiling height matters more in South Australia than in newer states because of what the housing stock looks like. South Australian and Edwardian homes through North Adelaide, Norwood, Unley, Prospect, Goodwood and Semaphore carry ceilings between 3.2 and 3.9 metres, which adds roughly a third to half again to the wall area of every room. It also changes the access from a step ladder to a platform or trestles. Measuring floor to ceiling before you call is the fastest way to describe your house accurately.

Trim volume is the fifth and the one owners notice least. Doors, skirtings, architraves, window frames, cornices and picture rails are all cut in by hand rather than rolled, so a modest room with elaborate trim can take longer than a larger plain one. Count your doors and windows before requesting quotes. That single number shapes the labour estimate more than floor area does, and it is the easiest thing for an owner to supply accurately.

Three Bedroom Housing Across South Australia

Three bedroom homes in this state fall into a handful of recognisable types, and the type predicts the cost far better than the bedroom count. Knowing which one you have lets you sense-check a quote before accepting it and tells you which questions to ask.

The differences are structural rather than cosmetic. Each category below carries a distinct cost profile for identical floor area.

Post-war and Housing Trust stock across the northern, western and southern suburbs is the most common three bedroom category in South Australia. Standardised construction, modest ceilings and simple detailing make these homes efficient to paint, and painters working those suburbs price them quickly and keenly. Solid plaster on masonry is still common rather than plasterboard, which affects how patching is done. Salt damp appears at skirting height in some of this stock, with general guidance at sa.gov.au and needs addressing before painting rather than covering over.

Brick veneer homes from the 1970s through the 1990s across the middle and outer suburbs are the second major group and the most predictable to quote. Plasterboard linings on timber frames, standard ceiling heights and straightforward trim mean three quotes usually return three similar figures. Reactive clay soils produce seasonal cracking at cornice junctions and above openings in these homes, which is normal rather than structural. Flexible fillers and late summer timing both help. It is the single most common repair item on this stock.

Character homes through the inner suburbs are the most variable and the most expensive per square metre. Solid plaster on masonry, ceilings above three metres, ornate cornices, picture rails, sash windows and original joinery all raise the labour considerably. Lath and plaster ceilings are fragile and limit how aggressively surfaces can be prepared. Lead paint should be assumed on anything painted before 1970, and preparation is exactly the stage that disturbs it. Testing and management sits at lead paint removal.

Regional three bedroom homes across the Fleurieu, the Barossa, the Clare Valley, the Yorke Peninsula, the Riverland and the Limestone Coast carry a travel component and a different substrate mix. Stone and solid brick are far more common outside the metropolitan area, which changes the exterior specification. Coastal properties carry airborne salt that shortens the exterior recoat cycle noticeably. Find out what the walls are built from before applying metropolitan figures to them.

What Not to Paint, and What to Fix First

Some surfaces in a South Australian three bedroom home should not be painted at all, and others should not be painted yet. Knowing which is which before you commission the work saves both money and regret, because several of these decisions are effectively permanent once made. An operator who brings them up unprompted is worth keeping. One who quotes to coat everything without comment has not looked at the building.

Previously unpainted stone is the clearest case. Bluestone, sandstone and limestone walls across the inner suburbs and the older country towns are porous and need to breathe, and an impermeable coating traps moisture inside the wall. Paint removal from soft stone damages the surface, so the decision cannot be reversed later. Texture and render options sit at texture coating.

Painting previously unpainted masonry is also generally development requiring consent under the state planning framework. Establish the approval position before anybody quotes a colour.

Active salt damp is the second, and painting over it makes the problem worse rather than hiding it. The signs are bubbling paint at skirting height inside, a white crystalline deposit, crumbling mortar and a tide mark running roughly parallel to the ground. A coating over an actively damp wall traps the moisture and drives the damage further up. The cause has to be addressed first, which frequently means ground levels, paving or subfloor ventilation rather than anything a painter does.

Ceilings with water staining should not be coated until the leak above them is fixed and the plaster has dried. A stain blocking sealer will hide the mark, but if water is still arriving it will reappear within months and the plaster may be deteriorating behind it. Establish where the water came from and whether it has stopped. Painting a wet ceiling is money spent twice and sometimes worse than that.

Structural cracking needs distinguishing from seasonal movement before filling. Fine cracks at cornice junctions and above openings are normal on reactive Adelaide clay and reopen each summer regardless of the filler used, which is why a flexible product and late summer timing both help. Cracks running diagonally across a wall, wide enough to admit a coin, or continuing through a cornice rather than at its junction are a different matter entirely. Those want an assessment before anybody paints over them.

Empty Against Occupied

The single largest saving available on a three bedroom interior is painting it empty, and the difference is bigger than most owners anticipate. A vacant house is masked once and worked through continuously, finishing in four to seven days, while the same house occupied takes seven to ten and costs a third more. That is not a discount being offered, it is work that does not need doing. Protecting the empty window is the most effective decision an owner makes on this job.

The reasons are practical rather than commercial. There is no furniture to shift or cover, no need to leave rooms usable each evening, no working around a household's routine and no risk of damage to belongings. An empty house also lets a crew work several rooms in parallel rather than sequentially, so the fixed drying time between coats stops being dead time. Two painters in an empty house achieve more than twice what one achieves. In an occupied house much of the day goes to moving things.

The window between settlement and moving in is therefore worth defending. Even four or five days is enough for a full three bedroom interior, and painting before floor coverings and furniture arrive removes the two largest sources of protection work. Small jobs sit at handyman painting. Where new flooring is going in, paint after the floor sanding and before the carpet, since sanders raise dust that settles on fresh paint and carpet layers do not. Getting that sequence right avoids redoing work.

The same logic applies between tenancies on an investment property. A vacancy that already exists costs nothing extra to use, and a full repaint in that window is cheaper and faster than the same work scheduled around a tenant. Managing agents will usually run the painting alongside the other end of tenancy work, shortening the vacancy. That period usually matters more financially than the painting cost. Raising it with the agent early is worth doing.

Where the house cannot be emptied, staging by area rather than by room is the workable compromise. Doing the bedrooms in one visit and the living areas in another repeats the setup twice instead of five times and keeps colour boundaries at natural junctions. Tell the painter the constraint up front so the staging can be planned rather than improvised. A painter who knows the household is staying will sequence the job differently from the start.

How Long the Work Takes

An empty three bedroom interior takes four to seven working days with a small crew covering walls, ceilings and trim. The same house occupied stretches to seven or ten for the reasons above. Deck and fence work sits at deck and fence painting. Exterior repainting runs six to ten days on a rendered or brick veneer single storey, and longer on weatherboard where every board edge is cut by hand. Those are working days rather than calendar days, and exterior figures are weather dependent in a way interior ones are not.

The constraint owners underestimate is drying time, which no amount of extra labour shortens. A water based wall coating is touch dry inside an hour but wants two to four hours before the next coat, and that interval does not change with crew size. What additional painters buy is more rooms progressing in the same window rather than one room finishing faster. On a three bedroom house there are enough rooms for a second painter to genuinely help. Beyond two or three the returns fall away quickly.

For most of the year the dry conditions here suit interior work well. Because the air is dry, curing keeps to schedule and recoat timing holds, so winter is when interior work is easiest to book here. A cold damp week in July slows recoat times and a heatwave can flash off a cut-in line before it is rolled out. Airflow helps at either extreme, so leaving the house open through the day is worthwhile.

Exterior timing is different and narrower. Roof coating is a separate trade at roof painting. Spring and autumn are the reliable windows, with midsummer heat and winter damp both working against a good finish. Most acrylic exterior products specify a minimum application temperature and a period of dry weather afterwards, and a contractor watching the forecast rather than the calendar is doing it correctly.

Build a weather buffer into any exterior schedule. A fixed completion date promised regardless of forecast is a warning rather than a service.

Curing continues after the painter leaves. A wall is dry to touch within hours and fully cured over one to four weeks depending on the product, and during that window it marks more easily than it ever will again. Avoid scrubbing spills, taping anything to walls or pushing furniture hard against them. On trim and doors the cure matters more, since a door closed against a soft finish can stick to its frame and pull the coating when opened.

Why a Site Inspection Changes the Price

A quote given without anybody standing in the rooms is an estimate rather than a price, and on a three bedroom house the gap between the two can run to thousands. Wall condition, ceiling height, plaster construction and trim volume are all established by looking and touching, and none of them appear on a floor plan or in a phone description. A painter pricing from a description has priced an average South Australian house rather than yours. That average may be generous or it may be optimistic. Either way it will be revised once work begins.

Drummy plaster is the clearest example of something only an inspection finds. Solid plaster on masonry that has lost its bond looks perfectly sound and sounds hollow when tapped, and it cannot be surface filled because anything applied over it releases when the section eventually lets go. On inner suburban housing it is common enough that a painter who has not tapped the walls has not scoped the job. The remedy is removal and patching back before painting. That is real labour and it belongs in the quote rather than in a variation.

Ceiling construction is the second thing an inspection settles. Lath and plaster ceilings in older Adelaide homes are fragile and limit how aggressively surfaces can be prepared, and a ceiling that has been patched badly in the past may need more work than the walls beneath it. Modern plasterboard behaves entirely differently under filling and sanding. A painter needs to know which they are dealing with before quoting a coat count. Asking the house age over the phone only narrows it.

Previous work is the third and it is frequently the surprise. Walls that were filled with the wrong product, painted over wallpaper, coated in a solvent based enamel or patched without priming all behave unpredictably under a new coating. None of that is visible from a photograph and some of it is not obvious until the first wall is sanded.

An experienced painter will spot the signs during an inspection and price accordingly. A higher quote frequently reflects defects the others did not find.

The practical conclusion is to decline phone quotes on anything other than straightforward modern housing. Where three painters have each walked the house, their quotes are comparable and their assumptions are visible. Where one has quoted from a description, that figure is not comparable with the others regardless of how attractive it looks. Ask each of them what they found rather than only what they charge. The answers tell you a great deal about who has understood the job.

Adelaide Pricing Patterns

Pricing across metropolitan Adelaide tracks house age and ceiling height far more closely than suburb, which surprises owners who assume a particular postcode automatically costs more. Two three bedroom homes of identical floor area in different suburbs can differ by half again, and the difference is structural rather than geographic. A 1920s villa in Prospect and a 1995 house in Golden Grove are different jobs regardless of what either is worth. Price the building itself rather than the suburb it sits in.

The inner suburbs carry the highest rates for reasons that have nothing to do with affluence. Older housing means solid plaster that cannot be surface filled where it has gone drummy, fragile lath and plaster ceilings, elaborate cornices cut by hand and frequently lead paint on anything pre-1970. Every one of those is additional work rather than additional profit. A painter quoting an inner suburban villa at outer suburban rates has probably not inspected it properly, which is a reason for caution rather than celebration.

The middle and outer suburbs sit lower and cluster tightly. Brick veneer with plasterboard linings, standard ceilings and simple trim produces quotes that land within a few hundred dollars of each other. Where one is a clear outlier, ask what it includes or excludes that the others do not, since the answer is usually scope rather than rate. Newer building methods also produce fewer discoveries mid-job.

Access is the metropolitan variable that catches people out. Narrow blocks, shared driveways, no off-street parking and tight side access all add setup time on every visit, and inner suburban housing is where those conditions concentrate.

Where the nearest parking is fifty metres away, that walk is paid for twice daily. Mention parking and access when requesting quotes, since it is a legitimate cost driver.

Asking a painter what they see most often in your area is genuinely useful. Operators working a particular set of suburbs constantly know what is behind the walls before opening anything up, and that shows in both the accuracy of the quote and the absence of variations later. Local knowledge is worth more than a small difference in hourly rate on older housing. Ask to speak to an owner of a similar house they have painted locally.

Regional South Australia

Regional pricing on a three bedroom home follows metropolitan structure with a travel component added, and on a house this size that component is a smaller proportion of the total than it would be on a two bedroom job. Regional work is therefore better value at this scale than at a smaller one. Flexibility and bundling still help, but they matter less than they do on a half-day job. Getting a quote from a painter based in your nearest regional centre is usually the sensible starting point. Ask where they are based before comparing figures.

Larger centres including Mount Gambier, Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Murray Bridge, Victor Harbor and Port Augusta have their own established painters and rates close to Adelaide levels. Outlying towns are usually covered from those bases, and that is where travel enters the quote. Asking a painter where they are based is a reasonable first question, and it also tells you how quickly they can return for a warranty issue. It also indicates how readily they could return if something needed attention. A painter two hours away is a different proposition from one in town.

Interior work travels better than exterior because it is not weather dependent and can be scheduled with certainty. A painter can commit to a week of interior work in a country town regardless of forecast, while exterior work risks a wasted trip. Regional interior pricing therefore tracks Adelaide more closely than regional exterior pricing does. Where both are needed, combining them into one visit gives the painter weather-independent work to fall back on.

Bundling remains the most effective lever outside the metropolitan area. Several jobs on the same street, a neighbour having work done simultaneously, or combining interior and exterior into one trip all spread the mobilisation cost. Raising it directly is worth doing, since the painter may already have work booked nearby. Asking when they are next in your area costs nothing and frequently changes the figure.

Coastal properties across the Fleurieu, the Yorke Peninsula, the Eyre Peninsula and the Limestone Coast carry an exterior consideration inland properties do not. Airborne salt deposits on walls, works into any weakness in the coating and shortens the recoat cycle noticeably. A fresh water rinse before painting is a step those jobs need. Allowing for a shorter recoat cycle near the coast is realistic rather than pessimistic. A fresh water rinse before painting is a step those jobs need and inland ones do not.

What to Look Out For

Find out exactly what preparation is priced in rather than settling for a broad promise. Preparation is most of the labour on any repaint and the only part nobody sees once the job is finished, so a quote describing it as required has committed the painter to nothing measurable. Where the scope names the washing, filling, sanding and priming, you can hold it to that. That one question separates quotes more effectively than the price does.

Establish the coat count and whether it describes two colour coats or a primer followed by a single finish coat. Both are commonly described as two coats and they produce noticeably different results on a colour change. Ask specifically which is quoted, and on a dark to light change ask whether a blocking primer is allowed for. A third coat discovered mid-job becomes a variation at a worse rate.

Check whether ceilings, trim and doors are in scope or quoted separately, since a walls-only price and a full repaint can look similar on paper. On a three bedroom home that distinction can account for $2,000 or more. Without that itemisation you are comparing different jobs and concluding one painter is cheaper. Lacking that, you are weighing unlike jobs and mistaking scope for value. Ask each painter to itemise them as separate lines, which is what makes three quotes genuinely comparable.

Establish the licensing position, since painting and decorating is building work in South Australia and contracts above the threshold require a licensed building contractor registered with Consumer and Business Services. Get the licence number and verify it on the public register instead of relying on what you are told. Ask for current evidence of public liability cover in the same conversation. Each check takes about a minute.

On anything built before 1970, raise lead paint before any sanding is proposed. Preparation is precisely the stage that disturbs it, and dry power sanding on a lead painted surface spreads fine dust through a house. Health questions belong with a doctor or SA Health rather than with a painter. A painter who raises it unprompted is demonstrating something useful about how they work.

South Australian Licensing and Workmanship Standards

A three bedroom repaint will almost always exceed the licensing threshold, so the contractor needs a building work contractor's licence from Consumer and Business Services. Verify the number on the CBS public register rather than accepting a business card.

The enforcement position hardened on 15 January 2026. Expiation fees of $5,000 now apply to unlicensed work, to advertising work outside your licence, to non-compliant contracts and to demanding payments you are not entitled to, with repeat offences reaching $150,000 for individuals and $550,000 for companies. New offences also cover hiring unlicensed subcontractors and using another contractor's licence number, which matters on a job where a head contractor brings in extra labour.

CBS stood up a Building Industry Response Team in June 2026 to pursue exactly those breaches. Ask who will physically be on site and whether they are covered by the licence you checked.

Workmanship is measured against AS/NZS 2311:2017, Guide to the painting of buildings, from Standards Australia. The standard sets out surface preparation, coating systems, film build and inspection for domestic work, and it is the document a dispute would be assessed against. Naming it in your scope is the cheapest protection available to you.

Two clauses are worth knowing before work starts. Bare plaster and bare timber should receive three coats, not two, which matters on any patched wall or new trim. Where plasterboard is spray applied, the first and last coats should be back-rolled so the finish carries a roller texture.

Brands routinely specified here include Dulux, Haymes, Wattyl and Taubmans. Each publishes a technical data sheet naming the required primer, the film build and the recoat interval for the substrate, and asking for the sheet is a reasonable request. Further SA painting guidance sits with house painters in SA.

Getting Comparable Quotes

Three quotes are only useful if all three price the same work, and a short written brief before you call is what makes that happen. Skip the brief and the lowest figure will simply be the one with the narrowest scope behind it. The brief need not be long, and half a page covering rooms, surfaces, timing and colour is enough. Half a page covering rooms, surfaces, timing and colour is enough to work from. It is the most useful half hour in the whole process.

Work through the house room by room naming each surface, and state outright whether ceilings and trim form part of it. Ambiguity there is the largest single source of incomparable quotes on residential work. Include the hallway, the laundry and anything you might otherwise forget, since adding items after quoting turns them into variations. Removing a line from a quote is simpler than adding one to an invoice. Tell them whether anyone will be living there and when you want the work done.

That detail moves the price more than anything else on a three bedroom house, and a painter cannot allow for it unless told. If the timing is flexible, say so, since flexibility is worth something and a painter who can fit you around a larger job will often price accordingly. Being slotted around a larger booking often brings the price down. Rigid dates cost more everywhere in this trade.

Mention any colour change, particularly dark to light, and name the house age and construction. All three change the preparation and the coat count, and all are cheaper to plan for than to discover on day two. If colours are undecided, say what direction you are heading so a blocking primer can be priced as a provisional item rather than becoming a mid-job variation. If colours are undecided, say what direction you are heading so a blocking primer can be priced provisionally. Carrying it as a provisional item beats finding out once work has started.

Request separate lines for preparation, ceilings, walls, trim and doors from each painter. Broken out that way it becomes obvious which painter priced sound walls and which allowed for repair, and that is normally the whole difference. It also means a budget can be met by trimming scope rather than cancelling. Most painters will quote this way if asked and very few volunteer it.

Making the Decision

On a three bedroom home the decision is rarely about which painter is cheapest, since quotes on straightforward housing cluster closely. What matters is the scope, the timing and how well the person quoting read the building. A few hundred dollars between quotes counts for little beside a difference in inclusions. Read the scopes side by side before reading the totals, and the totals make more sense afterwards.

A wide spread between quotes nearly always traces back to preparation or inclusions rather than to profit. Ask the outlier directly what they allowed for that the others did not, or what they left out, since the answer is informative either way. A painter who found drummy plaster the others missed is worth listening to, and so is one who quietly excluded the ceilings. Either answer accounts for a difference of a thousand dollars or more.

Prefer the painter who investigated to the one who responded quickest. Someone who walked the house, tapped a wall, asked about the ceiling construction and raised lead paint on a pre-1970 property is pricing your house rather than an average one. Speed of quoting is not a virtue on older housing, and the fastest quote frequently carries the most assumptions. Unstated assumptions tend to resurface as variations.

Have the scope set down in writing before any deposit, covering the product range, the coat count and the position if the walls prove worse once work begins. On older Adelaide housing that is a realistic possibility rather than a formality, and agreeing in advance whether it triggers a variation or a renegotiation is far better than discovering the position mid-job. Unresolved disputes are heard by SACAT. Most painters welcome the clarity rather than resisting it. A written scope protects both parties equally.

Store the colour formulations and product details somewhere retrievable. Later touch-ups go far better with the original specification to hand, and it is useful again at the next repaint. Photograph the tin labels before they are taken away, and ask for leftover paint to be left labelled by room. A little of the original coating beats any later colour match.