Decorating After an Extension or Building Work in Newcastle
Just had an extension built in Newcastle and wondering what happens before it looks finished?
This guide walks you through what it costs, the crack where the two meet, and the order everything needs to happen in.
- What drives the cost of decorating after an extension?
- What about the crack where the extension meets the house?
- What order should the work be done in?
- What’s it like living in the house, and how long does it add to the build?
Call 0191 743 3614 today and speak to Ross, the local decorator who covers decorating after building work across Newcastle upon Tyne.
How Tulip Decor Works
Call and you speak to Ross, not a call centre or a salesperson working commission on the quote.
He’ll ask what’s just been built, roughly when the plastering finished, and whereabouts you are in Newcastle. If it sounds ready to look at, he’ll come out and price it in person.
No figure gets given from a description over the phone. An extension’s paint run varies too much for that to mean anything.
Why Choose Tulip Decor
What that comes down to in practice:
Booked once the plaster’s dry
We’d rather wait a week than paint a wall that’s still drying underneath.
One decorator, start to finish
Ross does the work himself. No rotating subcontractors on a house that’s already had enough new faces through it.
Straight about how far the paint has to run
Matching the new wall can mean repainting the whole room. We say so upfront.
A fixed price from a site visit
Every quote comes from Ross looking at the actual join, not a floor plan or a phone description.
What Drives the Cost of Decorating After an Extension?
The useful way to think about it is not per square metre. It’s how far the paint has to run to match.
A small extension with a close colour match might only need the new room painted. A bigger one, or a trickier match, can mean repainting the room it joins as well.
New plaster needs its own first coat before anything else goes on: a mist coat that seals it, so the finish coats sit evenly. A settled wall doesn’t need that step.
Ceilings usually get painted right through an extension, even where the walls don’t. A patchy ceiling shows up worse under daylight than a patchy wall does.
New woodwork adds coats of its own on top of the walls: skirting, architraves, a new door.
None of that is a fixed formula, which is why we price from a site visit rather than a floor plan.
Deciding whether to hire a decorator at all, or take it on yourself? Our guide on hiring a painter and decorator covers what to check before you commit.
What About the Crack Where the Extension Meets the House?
Almost every extension gets one: a hairline crack right where the new wall meets the old, along the ceiling line or down the corner.
Whose question it is depends on what you’re asking. Why it’s there is a builder’s question, or an engineer’s if it keeps growing. New and old structures settle at slightly different rates, and that movement is usually all a hairline crack is.
Whether it needs filling, and how, is a decorator’s question. Once it’s raked out, it gets filled with a flexible filler or a movement bead rather than a rigid one. A rigid filler in a joint that still moves just cracks again.
Worth waiting through a full change of season before filling it, if the extension’s still new. Most of that early movement happens with the first real swing in temperature. Filling before it’s settled often means filling twice.
A crack that keeps growing is different. So is one that runs through the brickwork, or one that’s opening rather than just showing.
That kind is worth a call to whoever built the extension, not a coat of filler.
Whether your own crack is ordinary settlement is worth a proper look before anyone fills it. Tulip Decor covers decorating after building work across Newcastle upon Tyne.
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Send a photo of the crack, and Ross can tell you plainly whether it needs filling now.
When Is New Plaster Ready to Paint?
New plaster on an extension is ready on the same terms as anywhere else. That means dry all the way through, not just dry to the touch on the surface.
As a rough guide, allow a week or two. It depends on the number of coats and how the room dries out.
For the actual test to run yourself, and what happens if you paint too soon, see our full guide on painting new plaster.
The same principle applies to any bare plasterboard the extension left exposed. See our plasterboard painting page for that surface specifically.
What Order Should It Be Done In?
Getting the running order wrong is what turns one job into two.
- Plastering and any other wet trades finish first. Painting can’t start until the room’s structurally done. Our own plastering work follows the same rule.
- Mist coat and first coats on new plaster, while the room’s still empty. Easier and cleaner with nothing to work around.
- Skirting boards go on before flooring. Paint splashes are far easier to catch on bare subfloor than on a finish you’ve just paid to fit.
- Kitchens and bathrooms get decorated after wall painting, before the final woodwork coat. That way, fitting the units or tiling doesn’t mark a finished wall.
- Final coats and touch-ups once the other trades are out. Anything scuffed by another trade getting past it gets picked up last.
Stick to that order and each trade gets a fair surface to work on, instead of undoing the one before it.
Living in the House While It’s Done
Most extensions get decorated with the family still in the house. It’s manageable with a few things agreed up front.
Dust contained as it goes. Dust sheets down, doors kept shut on rooms not in use, and any sanding cleaned up before we move on.
One room out of use at a time. Not the whole house shut down while the extension gets finished.
A route agreed through the house. So finished rooms don’t pick up dust from the ones that aren’t.
Noisy work timed around your day. Sanding and prep are worth agreeing a start time for, especially with young children or someone working from home.
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Tell us your routine and we’ll plan around it.
How Long Does the Decorating Add to the Build?
Less than people fear, once the plaster’s dry. The wait and the work are two different things, and only one is the decorator’s.
The wait. Plaster needs to dry all the way through before painting starts, typically a week or two depending on the coats and the ventilation.
The work. The decorating itself is usually a matter of days once the plaster’s ready, not weeks, on a single room or a modest extension.
The wait is on the calendar either way, whoever paints the walls. Scheduled around the wait, the decorating itself adds little time to a build that’s already run over.
We cover extensions and new build work across Gosforth, Jesmond, Darras Hall and Ponteland. Gosforth, Jesmond, Darras Hall and Ponteland all see a steady run of extension work each year.
Tulip Decor quotes the cost to decorate after an extension in Newcastle from a site visit, not a floor plan.
Decorating After Building Work FAQs
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