How Much Paint Should I Buy?

Tell me if this has ever happened to you. Let's say it's a Saturday afternoon on a three day weekend and you spend a little bit of your extra time watching one of your favorite design or home remodeling shows on that nice HDTV in your living room. Can you imagine it? Great!

Lo and behold you feel some inspiration to paint a room in your own home. Naturally, you go to the paint store (I say, naturally because you read my blog) to go buy some paint. When you arrive, the supper-friendly-happy man at the store greets you and you tell him just how excited you are to paint that room. Now, because this man is not only friendly and happy he is super friendly and happy, he wants to make sure that you get all of the paint you need.

So he asks, "how much do you need?"

Has this ever happened to you? It has? Okay, if this has happened to you or if it may happen to you in the near future (again, because you read my blog and you are as excited about paint as I am) here are some tips to getting enough paint to put on your walls and ceilings.

Thanks to technology, I have some visual aids that will assist in describing each step of the process. Keep in mind that there are other factors involved, but in most circumstances this should help you out.

Step 1. Get a plan view sketch of your room.

I know the photos are a little rough, but it should sufficiently illustrate the concept

Above you should see a bedroom sized 14 feet by 11 feet with a door swinging into the room and a window.

Step 2. Measure your room for width, length, and height.

And remember that one gallon of paint

will provide you with anywhere between

300-400 square feet of paintable surface

Is "paintable" even a real word?

Step 3. Don't be scared about the math.

The perimeter times the height

will tell you how many square feet is in your room.

The width in this example is 11 feet

and the length is 14 feet.

Look at the image below.

The perimeter is 50 feet.

Make sure you add the width and length on both sides.

Step 4. Now that you have the math add a little extra...just in case.

The perimeter is 50 feet and the height is 8 feet

so the total wall space is 400 square feet

(50 feet X 8 feet)

Adding 10 percent extra should be enough for those oopsies

or other unexpected mishaps when you paint.

In this example, there is an entry door and a window

and you don't want to paint your window so sometimes

the window space can be included as your ten percent extra

without having to do any extra math!

The entry door can also be part of your ten percent

if you don't want to paint it; however,

if you want to paint the door

with the same paint as the walls

you need to add ten percent

Step 5. Calculate the amount of paint you need for the ceiling

if you're going to paint the ceiling.

Don't worry, this one is easy.

multiply the width by the length.

In this example, shown by the picture above,

11 X 14 equals 154 square feet

Add ten percent extra and you have 169 square feet

Step 6. Do a little bit more math.

Some folks like the walls to match the ceiling

And if you do than the math is simple

440 feet plus 169 feet equals 609 feet

Remember that anywhere between 300-400

square feet can be painted with one gallon

So, to make the math easy I have used 350 square feet

per gallon in this example.

Here's a recap of the math, it's okay if you use a calculator

After all, that's what I did

609 square feet divided by 350 feet per gallon

equals 1.74 gallons

You can't buy 1.74 gallons so you round up to 2 gallons.

Step 7. Determine how many coats of paint

you want to put on the walls & ceiling

In the image above you see that all of the math has shown us that we need 2 gallons of paint to cover the walls and ceiling. Keep in mind that the 2 gallons is just to cover the surface once.

If you want to put a second coat of paint on the walls & ceiling (and I'll explain when and why you should in a later post) you need to add more. In this example we need 2 gallons for the first coat. Depending on what type of surface you're painting and what paint you use you may need to only buy one extra gallon or you may need to buy 2 extra. When in doubt buy more...you can find a use for the extra paint later.

And if you're not going to paint the ceiling

the picture below will show you how much paint you need

So that should help you as you start on your next painting project.

It should also help you keep more money in your pocket

and prevent you from having to make multiple

trips to the paint store.

Enjoy!