Painting Your Home Interior: How Much Paint Do You Need?
A lot goes into preparing your home for interior painting. Believe it or not, even a little math is involved. But don’t worry: a tape measure and calculator are really all you need to figure out how much paint is required for your interior space. That said, the more time and effort you put into making these calculations, the smoother your paint job will go.
Knowing how much paint you’ll need will help you budget your interior painting project, save you trips back and forth from the store, and give you some wiggle room if you make any mistakes. Of course, all of this legwork can be avoided if you hire Raleigh house painters to do the job for you. But if you’re going it alone, here are some considerations for interior painting calculations.
Measure Methodically
Generally speaking, a gallon of paint will cover about 350-400 square feet. So, knowing how much square footage you’ll paint will determine how many gallons you’ll need. A standard tape measure should do the trick here. However, once you have your numbers, it isn’t always quite as simple as plugging in a rectangular area formula. After all, not every room is shaped this way, especially attics, which may be triangular. Beyond this, most rooms will have windows, doors, trim and other features that will take up space, affecting how much paint is required for a given area.
To save you the trouble of dusting off your high school geometry textbook, there are plenty of resources and calculators online that can help you plug numbers into formulas. Essentially, you want to subtract the areas you won’t be painting from the areas you will be painting. In other words, even if you’re not painting a door, measure its area anyway to give you a more accurate estimate of how much paint you need for the wall.
Consider Multiple Coats and Colors
A durable paint job usually requires more than one coat. Some Raleigh painting professionals may even end up painting a third coat if necessary. At the very least, you’ll want to apply primer to all surfaces you plan on painting. Be sure to factor in this extra paint when thinking about how much you’ll need.
Besides painting multiple coats, you’ll likely paint with multiple colors as well. Unless you’re going for a minimalist, uniform look, you might think about painting a room two colors or more. If this is the case, you’ll have to do some additional planning to figure out how much paint of each color you require.
For instance, you might paint most of a room a single solid color, but want to accent a portion of a wall or every wall with a different shade. The clearer the picture in your head, the easier it will be to estimate exactly what you need. If possible, use a pencil to outline how much space will be covered by the other color and measure that total area.
Better to Go Over than Under
As a general rule, it’s always better to purchase too much paint than not enough. You don’t want to break the bank, of course. But if you end up with too much paint, you can always return it to the store when it’s convenient for you (as long as it’s unopened and undamaged). If you purchase too little, however, you have no choice but to travel back to the store during the job. The fewer interruptions, the better.
As an added bonus, having some extra paint is usually a good idea for the future. At some point, you may need to touch up some areas. Having the exact same paint stored somewhere will save you the trouble of matching colors and sheen later on.
Ask the Experts
Knowing how much paint you’ll need for a paint job takes patience and experience, both of which Anderson Painting contractors have. You can do it on your own, but if you’re not confident or don’t have the time, our team is happy to help. To learn more about us and all our services, call Anderson Painting today at 919-610-1855 or email us at info@andersonpaintingnc.com!
