Interior Painting – How to Determine How Much Paint You Will Need

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To determine how much paint you will need for interior painting the best method is figuring square footage. If you are painting walls measure the length of each wall and add them together. Then measure the height, floor to ceiling. Take those two figures and multiply them.

Example would be as follows. Wall length 10+13+10+7= 40 wall height is 840*8= 320 square feet.

If your walls are smooth gypsum wall board or sheet rock then coverage for most interior paint would be around 250 square feet per gallon. You can always figure around 10% waste so our example room would require around three and a half to four gallons. For a new substrate you can also figure an additional coat, possibly primer depending on quality and characteristics of the paint chosen for the project.

Paint quality and colors chosen will greatly affect how much paint will be used, and the higher quality the paint the greater the coverage and hide. For textured walls and or different substrates your coverage can vary greatly, to almost none at all. It is very important to correctly determine how much paint you need, as custom tinted paint is non returnable. Ordering more paint than needed can lead to a lot of waste. If you do under figure and while painting you see you aren’t going to have enough paint to finish your project stop before you run out. Go get more paint, and make sure you mix what you have with the new paint to ensure that the colors will match as best as possible.

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If you are painting the ceiling, simply multiply your length times width of the room. In our example figure that would be 10×13. 10*13= 130 square feet.

Painting a ceiling can be challenging for inexperienced painters, and is often the one of the topics I receive the most questions about. The best method for ceiling painting would be to cut in your edges first with a brush. Then roll out the ceiling with a roller attached to an extension pole. Start on either side of the room, and be very accurate in your rolling pattern overlapping slightly in each pass to ensure even coverage. Any parts that are missed or not enough paint was applied will no become immediately apparent. This means waiting until the paint has dried and doing a thorough inspection under different lighting conditions to find any “holidays”. This is what professional painters call missed areas that didn’t get painted. Take your time, painting isn’t an easy task and professionals make it look easy because they have been doing it for years. Again using the best quality paint you can get will save you a lot of work and frustration.

If you just aren’t up to the task that is understandable, you should look into hiring a professional house painter . Painting is labor intensive, and that isn’t for everyone. Here are some tips on how to hire the right painter for your next project. Contact JHC today to get a free estimate by a premier painting contractor offering all types of residential house painting in Wilmington NC, and the surrounding areas.