Interior House Painting Cost In Los Angeles

Painting a house is one of the easiest ways to make a dramatic change in your home’s interior and exterior décor.

The effects of weather and the sun can fade any paint, so the house exterior will look refreshed and bright after a new coat of paint is applied. Depending on the size of the house and the degree of difficulty (a two-story house compared to a single-story house for example), an exterior paint job will cost about $5000 for an average house in Los Angeles. About 3/4 of the cost will be labor if done by a professional painter so there are considerable savings if you can do the work yourself. Unlike some other construction projects, painting is ideal for a Do It Yourselfer if done correctly.

Painting inside the house is more complex but you avoid having to deal with any weather-related problems like rain or a dusty wind that blows an unwanted layer of dirt over a freshly painted surface. Interior house painting is more likely to be a DIY project compared to painting the exterior.

Planning is essential to any home improvement project

For a paint job, the first thing is to choose the color and type of paint. If you lack an esthetic “eye”, seek help from a friend or a professional who has a flair for style and color. The three main types of paint are flat paints ($30 to $60 per gallon) that are good for living rooms, high gloss paints ($30 to $120 per gallon) that are good for hallways and where you want that satiny appearance, and semi-gloss paints ($60 to $400 per gallon) that are good for floorboards, ceiling trim and other decorative pieces. In addition to the paint a coat of primer ($5 to $20 per gallon) is first applied. The primer hides any existing paint allowing the desired color of the new paint to stand out.

The next phase of planning is to calculate the total area to be painted. This requires some basic math skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division

We will use an 8 ft by 10 ft room with a 10 ft ceiling height to demonstrate and say that the room has one 3 ft x 7 ft door and two 4 ft x 4 ft windows.

The room will have two walls with 8 ft x 10 ft dimensions or 160 sq. ft. The other two walls will be 10 ft x 10ft or 200 sq. ft. If the 8 ft x 10 ft ceiling is to be painted add 80 sq. ft of area to the total. Simply add up the areas for a total of 360 sq. ft or 440 sq. ft if you are painting the ceiling.

Next, subtract the square footage of the door (21 sq. ft) and the two windows (32 sq. ft) to reduce the area to 307 sq. ft or 387 sq. ft. If you are meticulous you can subtract any small areas covered by trim or attached items on the wall that are not painted but this should not be a major concern. Simply repeat this process for each room to get the total area to be painted. We can use 2500 sq. ft for our example house.

A one gallon can of paint will cover about 400 sq. ft of surface, so the final calculation is to divide the area to be painted by 400 to yield how many gallons of paint is needed. Using 2500 sq. ft and dividing by 400 yields an answer of 6 ¼ gallon cans of paint per coat. Painting usually requires two coats, so 12 ½ gallons is required. You will want to have some extra paint for future touch-ups so buy 13 one gallon cans or maybe three 5-gallon cans of paint if more economical. The coverage per gallon for primer can vary so check with the paint expert where you buy the paint or do some internet research to obtain that figure. Using 250 sq. ft per gallon, the calculations tell you that you need to buy about 10 gallons of primer for a single coat to cover the 2500 sq. ft in our example.

The other supplies you will need are brushes, paint rollers, masking tape, drop cloths, paint trays and possibly a ladder that are available at any large home improvement or hardware store. This should total less than $200 unless you buy an expensive ladder or a spray painter.

Finally, if you have painted before then you can estimate the time you will need to clean the walls, apply masking tape on the windows, apply one coat of primer, two coats of paint, and deal with the areas around windows and doors that can be time consuming to paint.

A professional painter will be able to do an average size room in 4 to 6 hours, so an amateur will likely take longer. Your decision to do it yourself or hire a painter will be decided on what you are prepared to pay for the labor and in Los Angeles the average rate for a painter in about $17 to $20 per hour.

We, at Los Angeles Home Remolers, pride ourselves on being professional, reliable, and affordable. We can help you remodel your fireplace. We are fully licensed and fully insured. Contact us for a free, no obligation consultation at 1-818-532-0482