GME was appointed to redecorate 350 student bedrooms at iQ Huddersfield during the summer turnaround period between academic years.
The site followed a cluster layout, with shared kitchens and circulation space serving groups of bedrooms, and the full programme had to be completed inside a six-week holiday window. iQ’s Huddersfield accommodation is a live student environment close to the university, which makes turnaround timing especially important between academic years.
Student accommodation jobs like this are driven by dates that do not move. Once the return date is fixed, every room has to be ready, clean and safe for the next intake. There is very little slack in the programme, especially when cleaning and decorating need to work in tandem.
Three hundred and fifty student bedrooms had to be turned around in six weeks, with decoration planned around cluster layouts, cleaning schedules and summer handover dates.
350-bedroom student accommodation redecoration in a six-week summer window.
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The team worked through the building cluster by cluster, taking kitchens, corridors and bedroom groups in a set sequence rather than treating each room as a stand-alone task. That suited the building layout and helped the site team keep track of what had been cleaned, decorated and handed over.
One of the main challenges was collaborating with the cleaning teams. During the first part of the project, cleaners were working ahead of the decorators. Later in the programme, that order changed, which meant GME had to leave completed areas spotless because the cleaning team had already been through. The sequencing could not drift or both teams would start getting in each other’s way.
GME put a dedicated site manager on the job, with set laydown areas and a project-specific health and safety plan, so the programme had clear day-to-day control. Labour was scaled to match the pace of the six-week window, keeping the work moving without losing control of standards or housekeeping.
By managing clusters as units and staying aligned with the cleaning schedule, the team kept progress steady across a large bedroom count in a short summer break.
All 350 bedrooms were completed inside the summer shutdown period, ready for handover ahead of the next intake. Just as important, the project was conducted in a way that respected the wider site programme, with decorating, cleaning and housekeeping kept aligned from start to finish.
For accommodation managers, that reduces risk. The project was not simply painted as quickly as possible. It was organised expertly, supervised efficiently and handed back in a condition that the client could work with immediately.
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