ᐅ Professional painters: worth it or DIY?

It may be good. My brother, a master painter, doesn’t do that kind of work. He or his team handle the messy jobs, while Mr. and Mrs. Graf von Fürst personally do the painting, and he is not allowed to sell the paint either—that comes from OBI. He doesn’t take on jobs like that. It’s all or nothing, but as I said, there may be some who aren’t too proud for anything.

aha, so if someone now wants a quote for puttying to Q3 level, your brother says "no, not interested. nothing works without painting!" Interesting story.

Doing the painting or wallpapering yourself is really not unusual. Probably the number one DIY task.

The painter wanted 9,000 euros for both interior and exterior work. I wasn’t confident about the exterior because of the height... but I’m happy to pay 4,500 euros for the interior, especially with exposed roof beams and 4-meter (13-foot) high ceilings. You have to apply two coats anyway—first primer, then paint.

With about 980 square meters (10,548 square feet) of wall space and around 170 square meters (1,830 square feet) of living area, that amounts to roughly 14 buckets of paint, and primer alone costs about 1,700 euros in materials.

Does anyone know if you need to have the walls painted white first before applying color paint? Or can you apply the colored paint directly over the primer?

Snowy36 schrieb:
Does anyone know if you have to first paint white in order to apply colored paint? Or can you apply color directly after priming?

It depends on the shade of color you want to use and the surface.

We used Profitec primer paint, which is a white pigmented primer.

ProfiTec Primer Paint WP P818 white pigmented

We also used it under patterned non-woven wallpapers (as these often have the issue that patterns or other elements may show through if the background is not uniform).

Caspar2020 schrieb:
It depends on the shade of color you want to use and the surface underneath.

We used Profitec primer paint, specifically a white-pigmented primer.

ProfiTec-Grundierfarbe-WP-P818-white-pigmented

We also used this under patterned non-woven wallpapers because they often have the issue that patterns or colors may show through if the background is not uniform.

Thank you!

After nearly single-handedly doing all the plastering, re-plastering some areas, applying two coats of primer everywhere, and either painting or wallpapering last year, I can say: yes, it’s possible. But it takes time, it’s exhausting (the ceilings! Wow, that really wears out your arms over time!), and at least the cleaning and plastering don’t look like a professional job. It doesn’t bother us, it’s good enough for our needs, and at the time we couldn’t get any tradespeople anyway, so we saved a lot of money. But honestly, I got really fed up with it at some point and was grateful for every helper – in some areas, I worked on it up to six times (re-plastered, plastered, two coats of primer, one undercoat, final paint, and some transitions treated with acrylic). If you have the budget, I’d personally recommend hiring a professional. If you have enough helpers who have done this before, go ahead and try it. Start by practicing a bit in less important rooms and save the living room and kitchen for last.

By the way, we used all products from the home improvement store. Everything survived and can still be used: masking tape, acrylic sealant, primer, paint, brushes, rollers, extension poles, gypsum plaster, filler, and textured plaster.