How much to paint a house in Toronto
How much does it cost to paint a house in Toronto or the cost of painting per square foot is the most questions from customers when looking for house painting quotes
To answer this question, first, you have to ask yourself several questions. it is because the overall cost painting house varies depending on the following questions.
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What is the size of your house ?
The size of your house determines the number of labour hours and the total of gallon of paint, the bigger the house is the longer the time requires to paint house
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Is it a three or four levels of townhouse or standard two floors house
In these days, more and more townhouses are built with three or four floors to accommodate more living spaces.
However, it takes more labour hours to paint those houses than standard two floor homes.
It is because those townhomes with three or four floors have more walls to paint especially in stairwell and landing area than standard two floor houses
If they have roof top patio, they look like three floors from outside but they actually have four floors inside to paint
Sometimes, the walls on main floor may also connect to the basement as well.
As the walls are all connected, therefore, we have to paint more wall spaces than standard two floor homes.
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Is it an empty house or occupied ?
As professional home painters in Toronto, we love to paint empty houses than occupied.
It is easy to move around and is faster to get painting complete.
However, in reality, half of the job of painting house is in occupied homes, either the colour is out of dated or home owners want to refresh their home.
For occupied homes, we prefer the home owners to help us organize their stuffs and to help us move furniture to the centre of the room. But, it still requires more labour hours than painting empty houses in general.
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Painting walls only or you need to paint trim, doors and windows ?
Even though doors and windows don’t have much area to paint, they actually takes more time to paint than walls especially the frames of door and windows
It takes us one hour to paint two coats on door and door frames. for the same one hour, we can paint one small room. if you have eight doors to paint, it really takes one guy doing nothing else but doors.
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Do you need to paint ceiling ?
There are two type of ceiling in Toronto’s homes, one is stucco ceiling / popcorn ceiling, the other is smooth ceiling.
Painting smooth ceiling is easier than stucco ceiling. It is like painting walls.
For stucco ceiling, if it is never painted, we have to seal it with Oil Primer firt then put two coats of paint. It is because unsealed stucco ceiling will fall off when it absorbs the water from paint.
Painting stucco ceiling is messy and the smell of Oil Primer is unpleasant
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Do you have open to above tall walls in the front entry or living rooms ?
The open to above foyer or living room makes houses look bigger and brighter and it is a nice feature to your home.
However, it is hard to reach the top and it may require scaffolding plus it need more paint as well. typically, one wall of open to above need two gallons of paint. For the same two gallons of paint, we can paint one bedroom.
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Do you have wainscotting on walls and Do you want to paint inside closets ?
This two increase the total number of labour hours. For instance, walls without wainscotting requires cutting in the ceiling line and the bottom of walls along baseboards.
With wainscotting, it double the hours of cutting in with brushes. it is becuase we have to cut-in along the wainscotting plus the ceiling line and the bottom of the wall, it is the same theory applying to the closets especially with custom multi shelf systems.
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What grade / quality of paint do you prefer to paint your house?
We use Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams paint for most of our paint projects in Toronto. Each brand has three categories of paint with different features. Regular grade, mid grade, and premium grade. Read our blog “Benjamin Moore vs Sherwin Williams“
The price of each grade is $40, $68 and $85 per gallon. If you upgrade the paint from regular to mid grade, there is $28 difference per gallon, if you need 10 gallon of mid grade paint for your homes. There is $280 plus tax in the overall cost of painting your houses in Toronto. Read our blog “choose the right paint for you project”
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Do we need to apply primer to cover the existing colours and How many paint colours are needed ?
The paint colour plays an important role in painting and it may change the overall cost of painting houses in Toronto.
The standard painting system is to apply two coats of paint on walls for colour changes, however, in some cases, we need three or four coats to cover the existing colours. For instance, painting coloured walls back to the white always requires two coats of primer as base coat to help with coverage and then two coats of paint.
It is because white has the worst coverage, therefore, the cost of painting houses in Toronto is higher because it requires more labour hours and material. Read my other blog “painting white may cost you more”
There is another cases, some people want accent walls or feature walls to decorate their home. From decoration prospective, it works well if you pick the right accent colour to pair with main colour, however, it generates the waste of paint.
It is because painting one wall does not need a full gallon of paint. but, we have to buy the full gallon for this accent colour and we cannot use the rest of this colour in any other rooms. Therefore, the more paint colour to use, the more waste of paint. this is why we charge extra to cover the waste of paint.
After reading all of those questions above, I believe you have an idea that it is not easy to answer the question of the cost of painting house in Toronto without knowing the answers first.
However, with more than 7 years of painting houses in Toronto RichmondHill, Markham Aurora, we, professional house painters, have developed a standard pricing system to simplify the estimate process.
For us, on average, the painting cost of square foot $1.25 is a good start to paint your house in Toronto. if your home is 2000 square foot, you want to paint walls only, there is no damage on walls, the new colour can cover the existing colour in two coats, your cost of painting house in Toronto is $2500
August 12, 2020 @ 8:49 am
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August 23, 2020 @ 3:57 am
no problem, hope it helps with your house painting project