How to Determine How Much Paint Is Needed for Walls
Painting your own walls can be a relatively simple process, but often one that takes a large amount of time and a large amount of paint. Before you can paint, however, you'll need to determine how much paint is needed for the walls you want to cover. Once you know how much paint you need, you'll know how much to purchase from you local home improvement or paint center. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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1
Measure the height of the wall in the room from floor to ceiling and write this number down. Measure and add together the width of each wall in the room that needs to be painted and write this number down as well.
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2
Multiply the height and the total width of your walls to find the square feet of your walls.
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3
Determine the paintable surface of the room by starting with your answer from step two and subtracting 20 for each doorway on your walls and 15 for each window to give you the actual square feet that need to be painted.
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4
Divide your answer from step three by 350 to get the total number of gallons you need to purchase. Round the number up if it isn't a whole number. This is the quantity of paint you need for a single coat.
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5
Multiply your number of gallons by two only if you want to paint a second coat over the first. This is useful if you need to cover over patches, dark colored walls, or heavily marked walls that cannot be washed clean.
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Tips & Warnings
Highly textured walls (such as painting over brick) or unfinished drywall will require slightly more paint than plain flat-surfaced walls, so plan to overestimate the amount needed by as much as one to two gallons more.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit brush in paint image by Vladislav Gajic from Fotolia.com
