How Much Paint Do You Need?

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

10 Jul 2007 08:50 AM

Getting ready to paint a room? User this guide to determine how much paint to purchase.

There are some great paint choices out there these days. I ought to know. I've been priming up a storm in this house to get it ready for interior painting. Primer is pretty easy to measure. You just get a big bucket of it and use it throughout your rooms. The "real" paint, however, is a little bit tricky. You don't want to overbuy and waste money, especially when some custom and designer paints are so expensive. And you don't want to underbuy and risk not having a perfect match.

Fortunately, I have a pretty foo-proof way to determine how much paint you will actually need.

First you need to measure the walls in your room to get a total perimeter. You'll need to measure all of the way around, and don't worry about windows or doors at the moment. Let's say your shortest walls measure 10 feet and your longest walls measure 15 feet. Your calculation would look something like this: (10 ft + 15 ft) x 2 = 50 ft.

Next, you will need to measure your ceiling height. Go from the floor to the ceiling with the measuring tape. Let's say that your ceilings are eight feet high. Your calculation now looks like this: 50 ft x 8 ft = 400 sq. ft. (square feet).

Now, you have to allow for those doors and windows. How many doors do you have? You can use the average calculation of 21 sq. ft. So, if you have two doors, your calculation looks like this: 21 sq. ft. x 2 = 42 sq. ft. Hold that number for the moment.

Windows are about 15 sq. ft. on average. Of course, you could measure them yourself, if you like. Let us say you have two windows in your room. You calculation looks like this: 15 sq. ft. x 2 = 30 sq. ft.

Finally, it is time to do our subtraction. Take your total room square footage and subtract the areas for the windows and doors. Your calculation now looks like this: 400 sq. ft (walls) - 42 sq. ft. (doors) - 30 sq. ft. (windows) = 328 sq. ft.

As a general rule, one gallon of good quality paint will cover 400 square feet of wall with one coat. A quart of paint will cover about 100 square feet. If your walls or porous or the color is bright, then you will need a second coat of paint, or two gallons in this example.

For ceilings, simply multiple the width by the length of the room. In this example, our calculation would look like this: 10 ft. x 15 ft. = 150 ft. You would need two quarts of paint for one coat on the ceiling.

Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Frugal Living Blog here at Families.com, where she shares money saving tips for today's families. She also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites.

Related Articles:

Secret Sources of Free and Low Cost Paint

Before You Paint

Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

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Sherry Holetzky (11404) 10 Jul 2007 09:03 AM

Handy tips; thanks, Mary Ann. :o)

Mary Ann Romans (26791) 10 Jul 2007 09:09 AM

You are welcome! Thanks for reading. And if you want to apply them, I know just the house you can use ;)