Estimating Paint for a Job | |
Especially if you are having colors custom-mixed, it is important to have enough paint to finish the entire job, or at least enough to finish one entire side of the house (if painting the exterior) or to paint an entire room (if painting on the interior.) The problem is that slight color variations may result in mixing. If you stop painting in mid-wall, then begin with a new can of paint, you may get a color shift that will be very noticeable. Try to estimate the job so that you buy enough paint before starting the job. If you are estimating the amount of area to be painted, measure the length by the height of the walls. Next, measure and subtract out any doors or large windows. If you will be painting the trim around the base, doors, and windows with the same paint you are using for walls, do not subtract the footage of the room openings, because it will take about the same amount of paint to paint the trim and/or window frame and doors as it would take to paint solid walls with no openings. Trim paint is less critical. Because it is applied over a smaller area, or a series of areas such as multiple windows, you will not notice a color shift from one area to the next. Try to estimate the paint needed as closely as possible, but you can always return for another quart if needed. An exciting development that is becoming increasingly available is a color computer that will let you plug in a photo of your own house and use computer colorization to see how it would look in any given color. It is difficult for many of us to visualize a color sample on an entire house: color selection by computer lets you actually see the house in the color you're considering before you actually paint the house. written by Gary Branson Reprinted with permission. Copyright HouseNet, Inc. |