Helpful Estimating Tips Painting Interiors

Help estimating interior painting, giving you another tip, when looking at square foot of floor space. This also helps figuring paint gallons for walls and ceilings.

This tip works just about every time! Re-checking long-hand, so I feel comfortable with my calculations, not needing to spend 3 times as long on a 10 key or hand held calculator adding up each and every nook and cranny floor sq. ft.

Other formulas also estimating square footage areas for ceilings containing B-Decking and Bar Joist supports, another estimation comes to mind when we are speaking of  interior painting of the residential home.

Using Floor Square Foot, Measuring Ceiling Height

First lets say we are figuring a 10' X 10' room w/8' ceilings.

8' tall walls would be 4 X 8' X 10' = 320 & + 10' X 10' = 420 sq. ft. of surface area with ceiling

9' tall walls would be 4 X 9' X 10' = 360 &+ 10' X 10' = 460 sq. ft. of surface area with ceiling

10' tall walls would be 4 X 10' X 10' = 400 & + 10' X 10' = 500 sq. ft. of surface area with ceiling

12' tall walls would be 4 X 12' X 10' = 480 & + 10' X 10' = 580 sq. ft. of surface area  with ceiling

Now we agree on this, this is where the fun begins. Using a little arithmetic you may or may not have learned in school, although I'm sure it was taught if you attended a school in America.

A typical modest interior home is an average 2000 sq. ft. of floor space. Using this as an example, you'll want to move the decimal over 2 places to the right, multiplying total square footage of floor, giving you almost an exact surface square footage of total painted surface square footage!

Calculating Interior Surface Areas

2000 X 4.2 = 8400 X (price per sq. ft) = Interior Painting Job

2000 X 4.6 = 9200 X (price per sq. ft) = Interior Painting Job

Knowing full well extra interior painting costs are involved painting ceilings one color, walls another, and extra charges for multiple colors throughout, these extras do not account with this equation, but can be implemented with price per sq. ft.

Gallons Needed To Paint Interiors

We've seen interior painting estimates vary greatly, some I wonder if they are indeed painters at all, charging so much, typically referred in the painting industry.

These total sq. ft. figures is also helpful giving a basis to calculate gallons needed, using a neutral tint base covers approx. 250 sq. ft of surface for textured walls and ceilings. Deep tint based colors may only cover 80-100 sq. ft. of surface, having to apply multiple coats for uniform finish.

Hope this tip helps you estimating interior painting, for cost, also number of gallons needed to fully paint an interior.

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