Size Doesn't Always Matter

Many home owners, when hiring a painter, assume that the price that it will cost to paint a room or a house is determined by the size of the area to be painted.  To some extent this is true.  A 60ft x 20ft living room will almost always cost more than a 12ft x 12ft room.  However, very often this simple rule of thumb does not apply.  Following are two examples that demonstrate my point.

I recently painted a small bathroom with unpainted tongue and groove.  It took three days to complete. This is longer than it often takes to complete a standard 12 x 12 room.  Why?  One reason is that small spaces are hard to move around in, and thus harder to paint than large, wide open spaces.  Also, bathrooms have a many items to cut around such as toilets, sinks, and pipes, that are not found in rooms such as bedrooms.

When painting outside, it is also not always clear-cut formula size equals price.  Many factors are considered.  One of the biggest issues is whether or not there is vegetation (trees, shrubs, plants) to work around.  Setting up ladders becomes much more difficult and time consuming when when a painter has to work around vegetation.  I recently did a job painting windows on a fairly small building  that had a lot of plants and trees to work around.  Each window required seven steps: remove storm windows and clean, scrape and sand, first coat frame, first coat sashes, second coat frame, second coat sashes, replace storm windows. For each step I had to move the ladder.  When I painted the windows, the ladder had to be lowered halfway through the coat to get easier access to the lower half of the window.

So, remember when you get a price to paint your house, size is only one factor in determining the amount of time it will take, and thus the price that will be charged.