Making a budget for home upgrades like interior paint is an important part of shopping for any new home, whether you’re renting or buying. How much you need to budget for interior paint depends on the size of your home. As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to count the number of “standard rooms” in your home and budget $1000 for each room.

Measuring the size of your home

Your real estate broker should be able to provide you with a blueprint that has the dimensions of the home’s floors. You could also measure each room yourself. However, there’s an easier way to estimate paint without a tape measure.

Try to visualize for yourself a standard master bedroom with a king size bed. You can think of that as the size of a “standard room” and measure the rest of your home accordingly. Make a list of each room in your home and label it as a “standard room”, “half the size of a standard room”, or a “double room”. Now, you’re ready to calculate your budget.

Time and materials for painting a room

You need to budget for two things, the time of the people painting your home and the cost of the materials needed to paint your home. If you’re the person painting your home, then your cost for time will just be a nice takeout meal to reward yourself! That said, hiring professionals is a good idea if you need to paint more than one room in a weekend.

For each “standard room” in your list, you’ll want to budget $300 – 400 for paint supplies and $600 for the time of your contractor (a total of $1000 per room). To help estimate how long this should take, a crew of 2 people can paint 2 rooms in 2 days. If you need to paint 4 rooms in 2 days, you’ll need a crew of 4 people. And if you want to paint more than 4 rooms, you’ll need to allow for more than a weekend.

As an example, let’s say that you have a home with 3 bedrooms, 1 half bath, 1 full bath, 1 kitchen, 1 foyer (count this as half a room) and 2 large living rooms (count these as double rooms). In this case, you’ll need to budget $10,000 and at least 5 days to paint the interior.

Learn more about selecting the best paint colours for your home here.