How to Save Money on Your Next Paint Job
The easiest way to save money on a paint job is to do more at the same time. Often when looking painting jobs and meeting with prospective customers I’m asked to give separate prices for different areas of the house. Maybe it’s even a separate price on painting the trim. You get the point, and it’s not an unreasonable request but sometimes separate prices can inflate the total cost. Normally I warn prospective customers of that and include a discounted price for if everything was done at the same time. Having a separate quote for the entire upstairs and downstairs wouldn’t matter price wise. However, separate prices on each room can bring up the price significantly because I then have to quote each room as if it would be done at a completely different time from each other.
How Can I Paint More for Less?
Just like a math equation painters follow an order of operations. Keep in mind every painter is different but here’s how we do it. First, we prep the walls and trim, then paint the ceilings and trim, followed by the walls last. When I receive a call to paint one bedroom, the ceiling, walls, and trim the price per square foot is going to be a lot higher than if you had us paint three rooms. The reason for this is due to drying time and job sequencing.
It’s almost impossible to prep the walls, paint the ceilings, caulk and paint the trim, sand the wall repairs, prime, and do two coats of paint on the walls in one day. It will likely spill into a second day resulting in more time. On the other hand, if we are doing multiple rooms at the same time we would paint the ceilings, trim, and prep the walls on the first day. Then sand the repairs on the walls, prime, and paint two coats the second day. As you can see the more you do the more cost friendly the project becomes. You could spend very little more and paint three rooms for almost the cost as just one.
Case Study
The other week I received for a job which was a large cathedral great room and small hallway. The job was to clean and spray the popcorn ceilings, paint the trim and doors, and paint the walls two coats. I figured the job would take two and a half days to complete and I billed it accordingly. My customer decided to go with us and wanted to know if we could price the master bedroom and bathroom to be done at a separate time. Mind you, the master suite is roughly half the square footage as the great room/hallway yet I estimated the job to take two days. Just a half day shorter but only half the space! Logic would have you think, half the space half the price but that did not prove true in this case.
Naturally, he asked why the price for the two areas are almost the same yet one area is half the size. I then explained to him that it came down to job sequencing and let him know it would be significantly cheaper to do both areas at the same time. Painting both areas together added just a day bringing the total to 3.5 days as opposed to doing them separately which would equal 4.5 days saving him full days worth of labor. Almost 25% of the total cost! After seeing the value in combining the jobs he then agreed to paint it all at the same time and is currently on the schedule.
Conclusion
When considering a painting project you can save a lot of money doing more at one time rather than breaking the job up into sections. Don’t only paint two small rooms when you can do three for almost the same price.
Call Paragon Painters Charleston SC
Call Paragon Painting, for all your house painting needs. We are licensed, insured, and will always give you a detailed painting quote with a fair price. Paragon Painting is a family owned and operated interior and exterior residential painting contractor. We service the entire Charleston, SC area including:
Summerville, Mt Pleasant, Moncks Corner, Folly Beach, Ladson, North Charleston, Hanahan, James Island, Sullivans Island, and beyond. We are the exterior and interior house painting experts, call us at 843-695-9450