I have a wall with some flaky wallpaper that needs to be fixed up. The area that needs doing is around five square meters, just below the window.

I have a good painter who's here doing something else. He says it will take a couple of hours to get the old wallpaper off (which will take the outer layer of gib), then seal it with an oil based sealer, skim coat, and sand. They're saying $450 + GST for this, or $700 + GST if we want it painted too.

All the estimates I've seen for skim coating are a lot lower than this, but I guess this job is three visits at least: one visit to do the wallpaper and seal, then another to skim, then another to sand. They may have to coat and sand again too.

Is this price reasonable? Doesn't seem toooo bad, but it's not cheap either.

Update: NB: I don't really want advice on doing this myself, either with gib or plaster. I want it done quickly and well, and I have a dodgy shoulder at the moment.