Painting & decorating costs: what actually changes the price

"From KES 6,000" covers a huge range of actual jobs — a single touched-up wall and a full exterior repaint are both technically painting, and they're not close in price. Here's what actually separates them.

KES 6,000–15,000: a single room, standard finish

Walls already in reasonable condition, minimal filling or sanding, standard emulsion. This is the range most "from" prices are quoting — it's the easiest version of the job, not the average one.

KES 25,000 and up: whole-house interior

Multiple rooms, ceilings, doors and frames, and any wall prep beyond a light sand pushes a job into this range quickly. A house that hasn't been repainted in years usually needs more prep time than paint time.

What pushes exterior costs higher

• Sun and weather exposure — exterior walls need a higher-grade weatherproof paint than interior emulsion, and it costs more per litre
• Height — a two-storey exterior needs scaffolding or ladder work, priced separately from a single-storey job
• Existing peeling or flaking paint — this has to be scraped back before repainting, not painted over
• Boundary walls are usually quoted separately from the house itself, since they're a different surface and often a different total area

One more thing worth asking: which brand and grade of paint is being quoted. Cheaper paint often means a repaint within two years rather than five — that's a real cost difference, just a delayed one.