Question for anyone who has contracted painters....

[tink2020]

If you don't mind my asking, about how much did your job run you (and how large was it)?

We are CLUELESS as to how this works, but we have come to the conclusion that we are going to need professionals to do at least part of the painting in our new house. I might be able to handle bedrooms, etc -- but the open areas, and the high ceilings are just not worth it!

So did your contractor/painter charge by square footage, time, both? More expensive for extra colors? Any advice? We're trying to see if this is even a possiblity, before we get someone to come over for an estimate and fall over from shock!

Thanks in advance!

 

[clh2]

We've had the outside and parts of the inside painted.

We love the painter's we use now. They do a great job, and we think they charge a reasonable price. The first rooms we had these painters do was the family room and the front hall/2-story foyer, and the ceilings in both rooms.

This job entailed an accent wall in the family room, which was navy blue, (needed 3 coats) and the remaining walls were beige. This room has a crwon molding. The front hall was also the same beige. The ceilings were both painted white.

My guess on what goes into a quote is not only the square footage, but also the amount of prep work (i.e. taping around woodwork, windows, doorways,) In addition, in the 2-story foyer, they had to figure out how to paint it.

They did a great job (the painter was recommended by a teacher at my DD's school) and charged us about $800 or $900.

We were so impressed with their work, we asked them to do the living room and the kitchen. the Kitchen also had an accent wall, the normal "kitchen" stuff to paint around, they also did the ceilings. This job was a little less, I am thinking about $500 or $600.

Yes, it does seem like a frightfull amount, but they did a fabulous job, the accent walls look great. We would never have been able to do as good of a job as they did. NOT EVER.

If your painter is providing the paint, make sure it is something that can be scrubbed, if needed. I.e. don't use a flat paint.

I still do some of the painting, in rooms like the utility room, DD's room, where it isn't too big of a deal if it isn't perfect.

 

[JoyG]

We had our entire interior done on our 1600 sq feet home. Three bedrooms, one bath, living, dining, kitchen, stairwells, front and back porches. It came to $3000. They painted ceilings, trim and walls. They had to paint over a dark and light lavendar colors to off white. They did a superior job, but it was pricey...I'm not sure I'd spend that much if I had to do it again. Actually last year we needed two of the bedrooms redone and I decided to hire someone off of Craigslist for $50 a room.

 

[makinorlando]

When I had the interior of my house painted last year I contacted a local Certa Pro franchise - my mother had used one in PA and was very happy with the service and work. They also have a one year (I believe it was) guarantee.

I had about 1/2 of my 2100 sq ft house painted, all the rooms that were painted had 12-14 ft ceilings and the walls required some pre-work, as the previous owners had wallpapered very poorly. The rooms that were painted were: LR, DR, hallway, kitchen, FR, MB and Master bath. No way could I have or would I have attempted this job on my own!

I picked the paint at Lowes and bought 1 qt of each color - they then color matched using Olympus paint, and reimbursed me for the quarts that I had purchased. I used four different complementing colors throughout the area (all from the same "color" card at Lowes).

The owner was here twice prior to the job starting - once for a consultation and estimate, and the second to help me with my color choices after new furniture was delivered and tile installed. I had two painters in my house for three days and on the fourth and final day there was a fourth to help finish up and check the work over at the end (he I guess was the foreman), they were clean, courteous, respectful that I was working in my home as they worked, as well as being very good at their job. The owner also stopped by once during the job and at the end to check in on the work and inspect at the end.

I paid $2,500.00.

 

[barkley]

we have'nt hired painters in years but what drove up our cost considerably was the fact we had a hallway with 6 doors that all needed to be painted-the time to tape them off to do latex vs the flat for the walls and then do the latex on them was considerable. we never considered doing our last home ourselves, and i don't want to think what it would have cost-it had all rounded walls and ledges-so unless you went with the same color in all the rooms (except beds and baths) the taping to get a clean, straight line would have been mind numbing.

we did have some painting done in the bedrooms prior to selling, and i found that having a general contractor do the minor repairs and painting was much less expensive than what the local "painters" wanted to charge.