Painting and decorating website with a quote form

What customers want to see first

A homeowner choosing a decorator is mostly worried about mess, reliability and finish. They can't judge finish from a list of services, so photographs do the work: crisp cutting-in, smooth woodwork, a hallway that looks new. The second worry is whether you take on jobs their size. Someone with one bedroom to paint wants to know you won't ignore them; a landlord with six flats wants to know you can handle volume. Say who you work for, and the smallest job you'll take.

Services, split the way customers think

Interior painting: Walls, ceilings, woodwork and doors, room by room, with what's included in preparation.
Exterior painting: Render, masonry, fascias, windows and doors, with notes on weather and the time of year you work outside.
Wallpapering: Hanging, stripping, lining paper and specialist papers, with whether customers supply the paper.
Specialist finishes: Spraying kitchen cabinets, period woodwork, limewash or other finishes you're trained in.
Commercial and lettings: Void turnarounds, offices and shops, out-of-hours working.

Before and after, done properly

Take the before and after photos from the same spot, in similar light, and caption each pair with the room, the work done and how long it took. Include a few details shot close: a crisp line where wall meets ceiling, a sanded and filled skirting. These are what other decorators do badly and what customers notice. Keep jobs in an Anticode CMS collection with fields for location, room, work done and the photos, so each finished job can be added from the dashboard on the day you take the dust sheets up.

A quote form by room

The main purpose of the site is a quote request that saves you a visit for simple jobs. Ask for each room or area separately:

Room type and rough size (small, medium, large, or measurements if they have them).
What's being painted: walls, ceiling, woodwork, doors, radiators.
Current condition: cracks, damp marks, peeling paint, wallpaper to remove.
Colour change: similar colour, light over dark, or dark over light.
Who supplies the paint, and any brands or finishes they've chosen.
Postcode, timing and whether the rooms will be furnished.

A list this detailed is best built as a form with a field per question: a custom form tied to a site function takes up to 30 plain-text fields, and an app build can go further. Submissions reach you through the same pipeline as any contact form. Photos come by reply email, since the form doesn't take uploads. For a rough guide, a site function can run a small formula over the form fields when the form is sent, working as a simple quote calculator: rooms multiplied by a day rate, say, with an allowance for ceilings, shown on the thank-you page. Formulas read numbers only, so ask for the number of rooms as a number. Call it an estimate until you've seen photos.

Preparation and materials

Preparation is where good and bad decorators differ, and customers rarely understand it. A short page that explains your process (protecting floors and furniture, filling, sanding, priming bare surfaces, the number of coats, cleaning up each day) justifies your price better than any adjective. Say which paints you normally use and why, and whether you use low-odour products for occupied homes.

Mistakes to avoid

A gallery of stock interiors. A customer who visits a real job of yours later will notice the difference.
No areas covered, so you get enquiries from too far away.
A one-box contact form that guarantees a site visit for every job.
Prices so vague ("competitive rates") that they say nothing. A day rate or a typical-room guide is more useful.

Building it with Anticode

Describe the business in a sentence: "a painter and decorator in Cambridge doing interiors, exteriors and kitchen spraying, with a quote form by room". The Architect asks up to three questions and shows a short plan with Services, Work and Contact pages. Swiss (Inter Tight) or Technical (IBM Plex Sans) suit a tidy, practical trade; Organic (Figtree) fits a heritage or eco-paint specialist. Upload your own photographs. Publish to a free anticode.dev address or connect your own domain on a paid plan so the address on your van and invoices matches. More on writing service pages in how to write a services page.

Limits

No uploads in the quote form; photos come by email.
No online quotes sent to customers. Anticode collects the request; you reply with the price.
No job scheduling or invoicing. Use your own tools for those.

Questions people ask

Should a decorator show prices on their website?

A day rate or a guide for a typical room helps customers judge whether to ask. Bigger jobs still need a quote after photos or a visit.

What questions should a painting quote form ask?

Room type and size, surfaces to paint, condition, colour change, who supplies the paint, postcode, timing and whether rooms are furnished.

How do I add new before-and-after photos?

If jobs are kept in a CMS collection, add a new entry with its photos from the dashboard. It appears on the site without a rebuild.