$8K Paint Estimate?!

[Mitch Rice]

Hey everyone,

My wife and I are working out the budget on our first rehab and are taken aback by the paint quotes. Everywhere we read says we should be paying a max of $2 per square foot for interior and around $1.5 for exterior. The below quote from a painter came in at $8800. Painting kitchen cabinets is included, but for the exterior only the front needs to be painted as the rest is vinyl siding. 

A second painter estimated $8200. 

The house is a 3/2 split level that's approx. 1600 square feet. There aren't any unique characteristics about this house that I know of that would cause it to be more expensive to paint.

Am I missing something?

Walls

all walls throughout the home... including closets and garage walls.

Wall paper removal in bathroom, kitchen, master bathroom.- should come of walls ?

Prime over and prep wallpaper in dinning room.

Mud and sand all nail pops, holes...

2- coats of Sherwin Williams Satin Finish

Ceilings

Family room ceiling- prime water stains, paint.

Back bedroom ceiling- paint.

Basement ceiling- patch holes and paint.

Garage ceiling- paint

Cabinets

Kitchen Cabinets- Prime, sand, caulk all seams, paint.

Trim

- all trim throughout the house

Prime, sand, caulk all seams, paint.

All doors to be sprayed with paint. Approx. 12 doors

Paint interior of front door trim color

Exterior of Home

Power wash vinyl siding (sides and back)

Paint front body, trim , front door, wrought iron hand rails.

Power wash deck, stain with a clear coat stain/sealer

[Mike H.]

Yikes. At first I was going to go into some of the contractors. But you've really got the entire gamut of painting jobs here.

Its tough for me to gauge painting estimate because my wife does all the interior painting and I rarely paint ceilings. When I do, I typically do it myself.  

But I would say for a 1,600 sq ft house, a 2k painting bill for the walls is not crazy. Ceilings another 1k? Trim. Cabinets, Exterior front. Basement ceiling.

Its adding up here. I don't know if 8k is really that out of line. I will say that I recently hired a professional painter and he painted all the ceilings for $600. 

But here's what I would say. If you really think its overpriced, throw out your number (say 6,500) and whoever meets it, gets the job.  Then you'll know if its out of realm of possibilities.  If nobody touches it, then you're just not going to get it done.

But man, that is a monster paint job there when you start talking ceilings, walls, trim, cabinets, etc.  And if you're painting the garage, then you should count that square footage there. Same with the basement. Also, prime and paint in some places is going to be extra as well. 

I really went into this post assuming I was going to ding the painters. But man, its a lengthy list there.

I still go back to an easy negotiating tactic. Put your number out there and see what you get. The one thing about painting is that its almost all labor. A 5k pay day for a couple weeks worth of work seems like an awfully good deal. But you probably have 3 weeks worth of work there. I don't think its as easy as it sounds. :-)