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We just received a quote to paint the interior of a new house of $12/sq ft - labor only. That seems excessive, and our GC said he's not going to use this company because the price is too high.
2800 sq ft house.
There is a considerable difference in the quality of painters. In part it depends on how good a job you need. Is it a common area where you will entertain guests, or a kids bedroom or a hallway in the basement?
We used four different painting contractors in our house. High end, middle, lower end (basically labor) and me. High end was for the room where we would most likely entertain. Middle wa important rooms but where mostly it woudl be family, low end and me were the rooms most likely to take abuse or be little used. When I started I sucked at painting. Luckily the high end painter was one of my best friends form High school and he took the time to teach me to paint correctly. I got as good or maybe a bit better than as the mid level painter (but not as fast). One room, int he basement, you can see the quality improve from wall to wall as I learned. Now 10 - 11 years later, you can definitely tell the difference in who painted what.
There is a considerable difference in the quality of painters. In part it depends on how good a job you need. Is it a common area where you will entertain guests, or a kids bedroom or a hallway in the basement?
We used four different painting contractors in our house. High end, middle, lower end (basically labor) and me. High end was for the room where we would most likely entertain. Middle wa important rooms but where mostly it woudl be family, low end and me were the rooms most likely to take abuse or be little used. When I started I sucked at painting. Luckily the high end painter was one of my best friends form High school and he took the time to teach me to paint correctly. I got as good or maybe a bit better than as the mid level painter (but not as fast). One room, int he basement, you can see the quality improve from wall to wall as I learned. Now 10 - 11 years later, you can definitely tell the difference in who painted what.
It's a new house, so it is every room. Drywall up, texture put on, now just waiting to paint. Bulider had painting scheduled to begin July 3. RIGHT! Still waiting. Tile guy ready to go, but they want to paint before tile. A/C not in yet.
BTW, the to painter was $80/hour. His workers were less. Gal in the middle was $40 an hour. She had not workers. Low end guy was $18/hour. He had two workers at $15/hour. Sometimes they did lump sum pricing, mostly the expensive guy. Sometimes they worked straight hourly. No real cost difference.
BTW, the to painter was $80/hour. His workers were less. Gal in the middle was $40 an hour. She had not workers. Low end guy was $18/hour. He had two workers at $15/hour. Sometimes they did lump sum pricing, mostly the expensive guy. Sometimes they worked straight hourly. No real cost difference.
We learned you get what you pay for.
Let's assume the $80/hr, and give them 2 man-weeks at that rate to finish the job. That's $6400. Where in the heck do they come up with $34,000!!!!!!! Even doubling that, or tripling does not come close! And this is in a house where they don't have to worry about spills, etc, since there's no floors yet, no baseboards yet, etc.
Unbelievable what a Sub can try to get away with when there is a building boom!
We just received a quote to paint the interior of a new house of $12/sq ft - labor only. That seems excessive, and our GC said he's not going to use this company because the price is too high.
2800 sq ft house.
Is that out of line?
If people are paying $12/sq ft for interior painting in Florida, I need to get on the next plane and start a painting business there!
Edited to add: I just checked a website (homewyse) that says interior painting ranges from 85 cents to $2.05 per square ft, including materials, but that refers to the square footage of the walls themselves. So a 10x10 room, with 8 ft ceilings, would be 80 sq ft per wall, 320 sq ft for the room. 320 x .85 = $272, and 320 x $2.05 = $656. Your quote would be $1200. VERY high!
It's a new house, so it is every room. Drywall up, texture put on, now just waiting to paint. Bulider had painting scheduled to begin July 3. RIGHT! Still waiting. Tile guy ready to go, but they want to paint before tile. A/C not in yet.
We were painting every room too. Since we had to paint or paper 18 rooms plus several hallways, we could only afford better painters in some rooms. Originally I planned to do all the painting myself and budgeted $2,500 for materials - ooops. I quickly realized it would take me 40 years to get it done DIY and I had many other project to deal with (like rewiring the house), so we hired painters. I did not keep good records, but I ballpark all the painting and finishes (including lincrustra and tin ceiling in one room and wallpaper and/or wainscoting in several others) cost about $30,000 - $40,000. There was also quite a bit of plaster repair in that number. We also painted the ceilings and two sets of stairs. Materials were about $6500 of the total cost, maybe a bit more.
The fancy pants painter spent a lot of time prepping the walls. Once he had them smooth looking, he went over them with a bright light an inch away form the wall, and marked every blemish with a pencil. He worked those areas and did the light thing again. Then one or two coats of primer, then he went over it with the light again and smoothed out some spots some more. Then two coats of paint. The paint went pretty fast. Most of the time is in prep.
On thing I learned from him is to use a lot of paint. You dip your roller, go up once down once, dip again. No spreading it out. Still he ended up with a much better looking more substantial finish than anyone else did. He also used more paint than anyone else. At first I was using 1/4 the amount of paint he did. As I learned, I was using about 2/3 as much as him. I think the second coat was thinner, he seemed to use a lot less paint on the second coat.
The other thing I learned from him is to use high quality paint. The good stuff (we used Benjamine Moore) was obviously thick like a rich gravy or syrup. The cheap stuff (Behr) was runny and watery in comparison.
Oh I learned to use quality rollers and brushes too. Seems like the rollers he recommended were called white dove or something like that. He used better ones but said those were good enough for me. He sold me on Purdy brushes. Expensive, but when he brushed the cut ins, you could not tell it from the rolled paint. Even on the moldings, it looked like the paint on a car with an expensive paint job.
I had bought quite a bit of Behr paint to use and then when we hired painters, all of them refused to use it. All of them said we would be unhappy with the results, calling them back for re-work etc. The cheapest guy did agree to use some in a basement hallway after I gave him a written note saying I understood Behr is not good paint and I should not expect great results. (Sorry Behr, just relaying what they said, not my words). However they were right. The hallway is in the worst condition of any room. paint has come off form bumps, and form the kids taping things to the walls. They taped things to other walls, but it did not pull the paint off. I was always a big fan of Behr paint until we did this project.
One last thing. bright colors (especially red, orange and blue most of all) are very hard to paint. The pigments are heavy and the paint tends to run. We used deep cobalt blue for the trim in the kitchen. I could not get it to lay decently, I tired having the middle painter do it and she had all kinds of problems and frustrations finally we had to have the really good guy do it. We used an even higher end paint for that, I think it was called Graham and it has porcelain in it or something. Mongo expensive, but it was just for the trim so we did not need much. It still looks great 10 years later.
We were painting every room too. Since we had to paint or paper 18 rooms plus several hallways, we could only afford better painters in some rooms. Originally I planned to do all the painting myself and budgeted $2,500 for materials - ooops. I quickly realized it would take me 40 years to get it done DIY and I had many other project to deal with (like rewiring the house), so we hired painters. I did not keep good records, but I ballpark all the painting and finishes (including lincrustra and tin ceiling in one room and wallpaper and/or wainscoting in several others) cost about $30,000 - $40,000. There was also quite a bit of plaster repair in that number. We also painted the ceilings and two sets of stairs. Materials were about $6500 of the total cost, maybe a bit more.
The fancy pants painter spent a lot of time prepping the walls. Once he had them smooth looking, he went over them with a bright light an inch away form the wall, and marked every blemish with a pencil. He worked those areas and did the light thing again. Then one or two coats of primer, then he went over it with the light again and smoothed out some spots some more. Then two coats of paint. The paint went pretty fast. Most of the time is in prep.
On thing I learned from him is to use a lot of paint. You dip your roller, go up once down once, dip again. No spreading it out. Still he ended up with a much better looking more substantial finish than anyone else did. He also used more paint than anyone else. At first I was using 1/4 the amount of paint he did. As I learned, I was using about 2/3 as much as him. I think the second coat was thinner, he seemed to use a lot less paint on the second coat.
The other thing I learned from him is to use high quality paint. The good stuff (we used Benjamine Moore) was obviously thick like a rich gravy or syrup. The cheap stuff (Behr) was runny and watery in comparison.
Oh I learned to use quality rollers and brushes too. Seems like the rollers he recommended were called white dove or something like that. He used better ones but said those were good enough for me. He sold me on Purdy brushes. Expensive, but when he brushed the cut ins, you could not tell it from the rolled paint. Even on the moldings, it looked like the paint on a car with an expensive paint job.
I had bought quite a bit of Behr paint to use and then when we hired painters, all of them refused to use it. All of them said we would be unhappy with the results, calling them back for re-work etc. The cheapest guy did agree to use some in a basement hallway after I gave him a written note saying I understood Behr is not good paint and I should not expect great results. (Sorry Behr, just relaying what they said, not my words). However they were right. The hallway is in the worst condition of any room. paint has come off form bumps, and form the kids taping things to the walls. They taped things to other walls, but it did not pull the paint off. I was always a big fan of Behr paint until we did this project.
One last thing. bright colors (especially red, orange and blue most of all) are very hard to paint. The pigments are heavy and the paint tends to run. We used deep cobalt blue for the trim in the kitchen. I could not get it to lay decently, I tired having the middle painter do it and she had all kinds of problems and frustrations finally we had to have the really good guy do it. We used an even higher end paint for that, I think it was called Graham and it has porcelain in it or something. Mongo expensive, but it was just for the trim so we did not need much. It still looks great 10 years later.
We insisted to our builder that he use Benjamin Moore. He insisted on a different brand, becasue of his painter. Well, we stood firm & are doing B-M, and maybe that's why the painter is afraid to do the job - we're expecting quality. Turned out we were able to get the B-M for less than the S-W paint, and B-M had the precise color we wanted, but S-W didn't. Builder found a different painter today that our foreman has used on other jobs & was happy with him. MUCH less expensive, of course.
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