Running out of paint halfway through painting is extremely frustrating.
Nobody wants to stop a project before it is complete to go back to the store to buy more paint.
Purchasing too much non-refundable paint is a waste of money, and what will you do with the extra paint after you have painted?
Here are the basic steps to determining how much paint to purchase when painting your home.
photo courtesy of skeddy in NYC flickr.com/photos/63854529@N00/299746776/Measure the walls you will be painting
Determine the height and width of one of your walls rounded up to the nearest foot.
Multiply the width by the height to get the overall square footage of that wall.
Continue getting the square footage for the rest of the walls you will be painting and add all of the square footages together.
Measure your openings
Get the square footage of any windows, doors, or any other large openings in your walls that will not be painted, rounding down to the nearest foot.
This includes fireplaces and built in bookshelves.
Subtract the total square footage of your openings from the square footage of your walls determined above.
You should now have the approximate total square footage that you will need to paint.
Go shopping for paint
For the most accurate calculation of how much paint you need, you must follow the paint manufacturer's suggestions since all paints are a little different.
Figure out which paint you want to use and read the information on the paint can.
Most gallons of paint will cover 350-400 square feet, however specialty metallic or faux finish paints often cover much less and may require extra specialty primers or tools.
A gallon of primer usually covers 200-300 square feet. Y ou will most likely need one coat of primer and one coat of paint to get even coverage on your wall if you are using high quality paint in a similar color to the color currently on your wall.
If you are painting a darker color that requires a deep base paint over a lighter color, you will most likely need an extra coat of paint.
If your walls are currently a dark color and you want to paint them a lighter color, you will probably need 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of paint.