House Painting Project Cost Lab

In 2025–2026, professional interior painting in the US typically costs $2–$6 per square foot of floor area, or $1,000–$2,500 for a single 12×12 bedroom (walls, ceiling, trim and door, two coats, light prep). A full 2,000 sq ft home interior usually runs $7,000–$15,000 with a pro, depending on prep level, paint quality and your region. Use the room-by-room estimator above with your actual room dimensions for a project-specific number — these are planning estimates, not contractor quotes.

Most US painters charge $1.50–$3.50 per square foot of wall surface for interior work and $2–$5 per square foot of wall surface for exterior work (labor only, 2025–2026 data). Per square foot of floor area, interior quotes cluster around $2–$6 and exterior around $3–$7.50. Rates move with region — labor in the Northeast or West Coast runs roughly 20–30% above the South — and with prep: heavy prep like scraping peeling paint can multiply labor by 1.6×.

Professional painters in the US charge roughly $25–$75 per hour per painter in 2025–2026, with a national median near $40–$50/hr for experienced crews. Most pros prefer quoting per project or per square foot rather than hourly, because speed varies with prep. Our estimator converts your project to DIY hours too — a typical 12×12 bedroom takes a DIYer about 7–8 hours across one weekend.

A 12×12 ft bedroom with 9 ft ceilings costs about $1,300–$1,600 professionally (two coats mid-grade paint, ceiling, trim and one door, light prep, Southern US labor rates) — see Worked Example 1 for the step-by-step math. DIY, the same room costs roughly $300–$350 in paint, primer and supplies. Dark-to-light color changes add one extra coat, pushing the pro price up by about 30–35%.

Exterior house painting in the US typically costs $3,000–$12,000 in 2025–2026. A 2,000 sq ft two-story home runs about $8,000–$18,000 professionally depending on prep (peeling paint, wood rot repair), siding type (brick and stucco need more paint) and region. Our exterior mode estimates wall area from floor area and stories, then applies prep and regional labor multipliers — see Worked Example 2.

Professional cabinet painting costs $65–$100 per linear foot in 2025–2026, so a typical 28-linear-foot kitchen runs $2,500–$4,500 with a pro (degrease, sand, prime, two coats of premium enamel). DIY costs $150–$400 in paint and supplies but takes 20–30 hours. Cabinet mode in this tool uses per-linear-foot labor with prep levels, since cabinets are almost entirely labor cost. Replacing cabinets costs 3–5× more, which is why painting them is popular.

Deck painting or staining costs $2.50–$7 per square foot professionally in 2025–2026 — a 400 sq ft deck runs about $1,200–$2,000 with a pro, or $150–$300 DIY in paint/stain and supplies. Prep matters most on decks: power washing, sanding and replacing damaged boards can add 15–60% to labor. Deck mode estimates two coats at standard coverage with a deck-specific labor rate.

DIY typically costs 60–80% less in cash — a bedroom that costs $1,400 with a pro costs about $300–$350 DIY — but you trade weekends and finish quality. Hire a pro when: the job needs scaffolding or two-story exterior work, there's lead paint (EPA RRP rules require certified renovators for pre-1978 homes), or prep is heavy. The DIY-vs-pro comparator above shows both totals plus your time cost in weekends, so you can decide with real numbers.

Divide net wall area (minus doors and windows) by 350 sq ft per gallon per coat, then multiply by coats. A 12×12×9 ft bedroom has about 396 sq ft of net wall area, needing 2.26 gallons for two coats — buy 2.5 gallons (paint rounds up to the nearest quart). Add ceiling (length × width ÷ 350 per coat) and trim separately. Need exact material quantities with can-size optimization? Our companion tool, the paint calculator, is built for that — this lab focuses on total project cost.

Going from a dark color to a light one usually requires one extra coat (three instead of two), which adds about 50% more paint and roughly 35% more wall labor. For the example 12×12 bedroom, that moves the pro total from about $1,410 to about $1,700. A high-hide primer can sometimes substitute for the extra coat on moderate transitions — the estimator's prep levels include a full primer coat for moderate prep and above.

If your home was built before 1978, federal EPA RRP rules require lead-safe work practices by a certified renovator: containment, HEPA cleanup and testing. That roughly doubles labor versus standard prep (our lead-safe multiplier is 2.0×) and a 2,000 sq ft home can add $2,000–$5,000+ in compliance costs. Get a lead inspection or risk assessment first — and never dry-scrape or sand suspected lead paint yourself.

Our paint calculator answers a material question: how many liters or gallons of paint to buy, with primer logic and can-size optimization. This cost lab answers a project question: what will the whole job cost — labor by region, prep levels, paint tiers, DIY vs pro. Use the paint calculator to size your purchase, and this lab to budget the project. They're linked both ways.

A two-story exterior costs roughly 40–70% more than a single-story home of the same floor area, because of scaffolding/lift time and slower production rates. Our exterior mode scales wall area by stories (a 2-story home has about 3.4× its floor area in wall surface before openings) and adds regional labor. For a 2,000 sq ft two-story vinyl home with heavy prep on the West Coast, the worked example comes to about $18,000 with a pro.

A 2,000 sq ft two-story home has roughly 6,100 sq ft of paintable wall surface (3.4× floor area, minus ~10% for windows and doors), needing about 35 gallons for two coats at 350 sq ft/gal — plus primer if prep is moderate or heavier. One-story homes need closer to 20 gallons. Brick or stucco siding needs 20–25% more paint than vinyl or wood lap siding.

Less than most people expect: upgrading from economy ($32/gal) to premium ($78/gal) paint on the example bedroom adds only about $115 to a $1,410 project, because labor dominates. Premium paint's real payoff is durability and fewer repaints — one-coat-hide premium lines can even reduce labor on color-similar repaints. The estimator's three tiers let you compare the delta directly.

They're planning-grade estimates built from 2025–2026 US data: BLS regional wage indexes, retail paint prices, standard 350 sq ft/gal coverage and contractor production rates — see Methodology for sources and vintage. Real quotes vary with your home's condition, access, season and local market. Get 3 written quotes from licensed painters before committing; use this tool to know whether a quote is in a sane range.