On average, homeowners spend $300-420 or $2.5-3.5 per square foot to paint a 10×12 room. This does NOT include ceilings, baseboards, trim, or wall repair.
Quickly estimate your total cost to paint a single room of any size, including professional labor and materials.
How Much Does It Cost To Paint A Room?
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The average cost to paint a single room is $450-650 for a 10×12 space, when you hire a professional contractor.
If you need to complete a small painting project inside your home and want to hire a professional painter, expect to pay $25-35 per hour for labor.
Keep in mind that painting only one room costs more per square foot, compared to the cost of interior painting for a couple of rooms or the entire house.
At first, you might think that a 10×12 room is 120 sq.ft. However, WALL SURFACE is room perimeter X wall height (44ft x 8ft) or 352 sq.ft! So, now you are actually paying about $1 per sq. ft. of wall surface.
If you include all these additional factors, the total price for one room can be as high $650-1,000+, depending on the amount of additional time and labor required.
Labor Cost To Paint A Room
Professional interior painting pros charge $45-75 per hour depending on the size and complexity of the project as well as local labor rates. This is equivalent to about $1.25.-2.50 per square foot.
Furniture removal will be an extra $100-150 per room.
Keep in mind that labor rates vary greatly from region to region. For example, in large cities where the standard of living is higher, contractors will charge significantly more than in less affluent areas.
This is why it is so important to get free price quotes from 3-4 local contractors, so that you know what the rates are where you live.
How Room Size Impacts Painting Cost
When budgeting, keep in mind the biggest factor that affects your total interior painting cost is the area size.
If you only need to paint one or two rooms, you will pay the highest price per square foot. This is because a professional painter has to also include the cost of set up, time spent on getting the materials, and other overhead.
You can get a much better deal if you decide to update a bigger area. For example, if you want to paint an entire house of about 1,700 sq.ft., your price per sq.ft. will go down to about $2.25 – 2.40 Hence, an even bigger project of about 3,000 sq.ft. will drop the cost per square foot to about $1.85
Finally, note that all estimates are typically for 8 ft ceilings. If your ceilings are higher, you should add about 9% to the total cost, for each extra foot of height your ceiling has.
Additional Room Painting Costs
$2,138 - $3,197
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There are a number of factors that can increase the total cost of painting a room.
Wall repairs: budget about $40-45/hr to fix the damages.
Wall Color: if you want your walls to be painted in darker colors, it will likely take more than 2 coats to get proper coverage and color saturation. As a result, the total cost will go up.
Special Texture: some room designs call for textured walls. These will cost 20-30% more to paint, depending on the texture, because it will require more paint, and more labor.
Quality of Paint: most pros use house brands for both primer and paint, such as BEHR. However, if you want premium colors or premium quality paint, such as Farrow & Ball, expect to spend about $99/gallon.
Vaulted/Cathedral Ceilings: painting a room that has vaulted or cathedral ceilings will cost a few hundred dollars extra. It will take longer and will be more labor intensive to set up the staging for this job.
Paint Window Trim: if you have windows in the room, its a good idea to paint the trim around them as well (unless its a natural wood stain).
Otherwise, your newly painted room will look strange and unfinished. Thus, depending on how many windows you have, there will be an additional charge of about $200-300
Decorative Finish: an accent wall or an entire room that you want to paint with special texture, this will cost significantly more. While marble textures start at about $5-6 per sq.ft. stenciling can be as much as $8-11 per sq.ft.
Overall, to get the best look, we recommend repainting the entire room and the ceiling.
DIY Painting Costs
Putting a new coat of paint in any part of the house can be a very manageable and affordable DIY painting project.
Typically, homeowners report spending $250-350 to paint a 12×12 room, including all supplies and medium quality professional paint.
With careful planning, this project can be completed over the weekend 36-48 hours (including set up and clean up time).
In addition to saving 60-70% off compared to the cost of hiring a professional painter, you get a big benefit of experimenting with colors at your own pace.
When hiring a pro, many people feel pressured to choose the color scheme for a room, and given the myriad of choices, it can be very hard. Once the job is done, some get disappointed with the final look, because its different from what they initially envisioned.
When you are painting by yourself, take the time to try out different colors. Request a couple of samples and put large strokes of color on the wall, so you can compare them.
Also, take a look at these colors in different lighting conditions (day vs night, natural vs electric lighting). This way you will end up choosing a color that will make you and everyone in your home happy.
$2,138 - $3,197
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