How to Estimate Painting

Estimating the right amount of paint needed for each room before starting isn't hard and can save you a lot of extra time and material. This article will cover the basics for estimating paint with a example estimate for painting a 10'x10' room walls/ceilings.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure.

Instructions

1. When estimating the paint for a room there is a few questions to ask your self, 1st does the room need to be painted with a coat of primer, 2nd are you painting the ceilings, 3rd how many coats of paint it will take to achieve the color wanted. [Most paint takes one good primer coat with two good coats of paint]

2. Estimating ceiling paint, To figure the needed amount of paint for a ceiling you would measure the floor then multiply the length times width. Example: a 10'x10' room would have a 100 SQFT of ceiling area, we are using 1 primer coat and two color/paint coats, so we need {100 SQFT} worth of primer and {200 SQFT} worth of paint to cover the ceilings total area.

3. Estimating paint for interior walls, Using the same amount of coats like in the last step we will estimate the paint for a 10'x10' room with 8' high walls. Since all 4 walls are the same measurement we would just figure out one wall then multiply it by 4, when the walls are different sizes just figure each wall one at a time then add the total SQFT together. Example a 10'x10' room with 8' high walls, 1 primer coat and 2 paint coats would be figured like this: 10' times 8' times 4 or 10'x8'x4'={320 SQFT} So total SQFT would be {320 SQFT} of primer and {640 SQFT} of paint needed for walls.

4. Last figuring square foot into gallons of paint, In general, 1 gallon of paint will cover about 350 SQFT. So add the ceiling and floor primer/paint numbers together: {100 SQFT}+{320 SFT}=[420 SQFT] {200 SQFT}+{640 SQFT}=[840 SQFT] then divide each one by 350 to get the total amount of gallons needed. [420/320=1.4] [820/320=2.5] To finish the estimate for the total needed paint for a 10x10x8 room is 1.4 gallons of primer and 2.5 gallons of color/paint.

Resources

• Get a Painting Estimate online