How much will it cost to paint my home?
Posted on November 20, 2019
Average House Painting Costs | Boston & South Shore, MA Homes
The cost to paint your South Shore and Boston-area home depends on a few factors. Here we’ll discuss average prices to complete painting projects in the South Shore and Boston-area, as well as factors that can increase or decrease your costs significantly. If you are looking for more house painting cost information for the Boston area, see our detailed pricing guide. Let’s jump in:
Looking for pictures of houses with our painting prices? Click our pricing guides below:
Takeaways from this article:
- We’re proud of our prices and publish average prices for painting exteriors and interiors right on our website.
- The following will increase your paint costs: high structures and ceilings, intricate molding, deep colors requiring more paint coats, the presence of lead paint, the size of your home or rooms, and how smooth you want the surface prepared before we apply paint.
- The “perfect” color costs exactly the same as a color that’s not quite right. Our free staff designer can help you choose the best paint color for your home’s interior or exterior.
- We include both paint and labor in the painting price we quote you because we pass our deep-discounts on premium paint brands along to you.
How much will it cost to paint my home?
Average House Painting Costs | Boston & South Shore, MA Homes
The cost to paint your South Shore and Boston-area home depends on a few factors. Here we’ll discuss average prices to complete painting projects on the South Shore and in the Boston-area, as well as factors that can increase or decrease your costs significantly.
If you are looking for more house painting cost information for the Boston area, see our detailed pricing guide. Let’s jump in:
On the South Shore and in the Boston-area, expect to pay the following average painting prices to paint your home:
Exterior painting (average costs):
-3,000 square foot home: $7,500
-1,800 square foot home: $3,900
Interior painting (average costs):
-12’ x 12’ bedroom: $ 670
-Large kitchen: $1,450
-Paint kitchen cabinets: $4,000-6,000
-14’ x 20’ family room $1,450
8 factors that will affect the cost of my Boston and South Shore-area painting project:
1: The color you choose affects the final cost of your painting project:
Changing the paint color from very light to very deep sometimes requires a third or fourth coat of paint to cover the old (lighter) paint adequately. This also works in reverse and painting a very light color over a deep color requires 3+ coats of paint.
Painting white over dark wood trim requires many paint coats so the stain and knots don’t bleed through. Wood knots are particularly tricky and often peek through even years later! This is a favorite project of our South Shore customers with stained wood interior molding and trim they want to paint white.
Many reds, yellows, and deep colors require more than two coats of paint to adequately cover.
Other than the above instances, color doesn’t usually affect the cost of a painting project much at all. This means getting the perfect color usually costs the same as painting a shade that’s “not quite right.”
We have many resources to help you get the ideal color, including a free in-home consultation with our staff designer. She’ll help you choose a paint color that coordinates with your current furnishings or integrates some historic colors of the Boston area. 20% of our customers use our in-home color consultant to help choose colors they might not feel confident choosing and find it’s well worth the time they spend working with her. Of course, our color consultant will never push you to choose a color that is not 100% “you.”
2: The size of your home will change the price
The size of your home and paintable surface area will affect the cost of the total painting job. Smaller homes and rooms are generally less expensive to paint than larger ones.
3: Surface preparation requirements
The amount of surface preparation to the wood, drywall, or underlying substrate we need to do before we paint can significantly increase or decrease the cost. These include:
Power sanding
Feather sanding
Chemical and mechanical stripping of your entire home or just certain areas. For example: If you want a 100% smooth and glossy surface on your antique front door with no paint edges showing from previous paint layers, you need the door chemically or mechanically stripped.
4: The presence of lead paint
If your home was built before 1978 and contains lead paint, it will cost about 30% more to safely prepare your home for painting. The EPA has strict rules about removing, collecting, and disposing of lead paint chips, and that takes about 30% more time for our painters to complete.
We are a Lead-Certified painting firm, and the crews we send to paint projects containing Lead are trained to do this type of work safely.
If you have Lead Paint on or inside your home, it is important to hire a Lead Certified painter like CertaPro Painters to do the painting. If you decide to forego this, your family is in danger of breathing harmful lead dust. In Massachusetts, it’s not legal to paint or renovate lead surfaces without being certified to do so.
5: Intricate Moldings
Intricate moldings take longer to paint and therefore add to the cost of the painting project. When painting a highly detailed dental molding, it takes far more time than painting a simple molding without lots of nooks and crannies.
6: Wall and ceiling staining and wood knots
Wall and ceiling staining and wood knots require us to perform the extra step of adding a stain-killing primer to hide the stain and knots to prevent future bleed-through of the stains. Understand that even when we take the extra step to hide stains and knots, it may not be a permanent fix if you don’t fix what caused the stain.
Any time a water stains or mold appears on your walls or ceilings, we strongly recommend that you fix the stain’s source (i.e., a roof or bathroom leak) before painting over it.
7: Ceiling height and tall roof peaks
Ceiling height and tall roof peaks will affect the price because it takes longer to paint high areas and move ladders and lift equipment to increase our reach.
8: Drywall damage & exterior wood damage
Drywall repairs like wall holes and mold cleaning and exterior wood damage that needs to be fixed ahead of time will increase the project’s price.
Frequently asked questions about how we price our interior and exterior painting for South Shore Residential Painting Projects:
Question:
How do your prices compare to other painters on the South Shore?
Answer:
Our interior and exterior house painting prices tend to fall right in the middle of most South Shore Residential Painting Contractors. Because we’re licensed and have robust insurance, we are hardly ever the least expensive painter on the South Shore, but we’re also almost never the most costly.
Question:
How do I know I need to paint my home’s exterior?
Answer:
Take our quiz – in 20 seconds, it’ll tell you if your home’s exterior needs painting or not.
Question:
Is there anything part of the job I can do myself to save money?
Answer:
For interiors, you may be able to save money by preparing walls by washing, sanding, and caulking them. You would then only be charged for us applying the paint.
Question:
If I hire my own carpenter to repair the wood rot around my home, will I save money?
Answer:
Not usually. We have carpenters on staff and charge similar rates as most other South Shore carpenters do. The convenience of one-stop shopping to get both the carpentry and painting done by the same company appeals to our busy customers.
Question:
If I buy the paint for you, will that save me money?
Answer:
No. As one of the largest painting companies on the South Shore, we get the best pricing for all quality paint brands. We include paint in the price we quote you because we pass our paint savings to you.
Question:
If I decide to paint something else while you’re already at my home painting, will that save me money in “trip charges?” For example, adding my shed or ceilings to the existing work you’re doing.
Answer:
Yes. We’re happy to add work to your project while we’re already on-site. And since we’re already at your home, the price is lower than if we have to make another trip back to complete the same work!
Question:
Are there any tax advantages to painting?
Answer:
You might also like:
Residential pricing guide with photos and actual prices
