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I can tell pretty quickly in my friends houses who has painted themselves and who has had their house professionally painted. Rolling and edging a bedroom is an easy DIY (yet still can look messy if you don't pay attention to the details). But all of the prep work (patching, sanding, filling) for a smooth wall, and all of the prep work for trim done well (patching, filling, sanding, replacing bad wood) and skipped by the average DIY-er and is immediately noticeable. Its a LOT of labor. IMO professionals charge accordingly. It would take me months to paint my condo in its entirety (I'm talking trim, doors, walls). My free time is worth something and I'm willing to pay someone else to do it.
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@aprild: Do you have friends and family you can have over for a painting party? Like the old saying, many hands make light work. Maybe you can have them come help with things like trim and doors and have the pros come in to do walls and such. And when your friends/family paint they don't have to be so careful with the trim since the pros would be doing the cutting in when they do the walls.
We are huge DIY people so my whole house was done with help from loved ones.
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We are in the beginning process of building a much smaller home than that, and we were told for trim it is $1 a square foot and painting the rooms is going to be $6,500 so I'd say that's pretty spot on for that size of house (and I'm in the Midwest so stuff tends to run cheaper here.)
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The $15,000 sounds pretty reasonable considering the square footage of your house, the fact that you have some drywall repair as well as all the trim and doors to be painted. The 2-story foyer is also adding to the cost.
I'd be careful about using a handyman. You want to be sure that the people you are using are insured in case they do any damage to your house or they fall off a ladder and break something.
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holy shit i had no idea that painting was so expensive. this is eye-opening. i guess our marked up walls are going to stay that way.
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We recently had the same issue. We moved into a brand new 3000 sqft home that is painted this ugly builder beige color.
We got a quote from a professional for the whole house and it was in the $12K range (no trim).I decided to paint some rooms myself. As @Littlebit7 stated, it's obvious in these rooms that I painted myself. Lines are not 100% even. Don't get me wrong, it doesnt look bad - but it doesnt look professional.
When baby #2 was due, I hired a "handyman" to paint the nursery. His quotes were cheaper by half than the painting companies. His paint ended up looking worse than the rooms I did myself, and we had to go over it ourselves anyway.
I'd either do it yourself or hire the pros. -
Holy hell, that's a lot of money.
I used a local handyman (older retired man), to remove wallpaper, patch, and paint my kitchen. He had his son help him. $400 and worth every penny.
Had I used a "professional", it would have been super expensive. You're paying for the convenience, I suppose, but that is a LOT of money!
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@Littlebit7: Funny that you say that, I actually feel like the "pros" do a sloppier job most the time and that they don't take the care that a homeowner would in their space. Or maybe I've just seen really crappy painters. My neighbors hired a painting company to paint their trim and cabinets and they did an AWFUL job. It was sloppy, bleeding everywhere, color on the walls. The cabinets, they didn't even paint the back side of it, and on one of the doors, they left a giant hand paint on the back! The "pros" the owner of my house hire before, same thing, sloppy on the walls and trim, they didn't even bother to remove light switch covers or light fixtures and left nasty huge brush marks around it!
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So far we have just had the girls' bedrooms painted (each is about 11x14) but we used a local handyman recommended by our realtor. I'll say that good paint is expensive! He charged us $150 per room and did the closets, ceiling, trim, and walls. The paint was about another $100 though, even bought 40% off. We used SW Emerald paint because I wanted something that would go on well and hold up to whatever the kids might do. At that rate I guess I could see paying $7-10k for an entire house. Despite what others have said, the guy we used did a great job and I would hire him again.
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@PurplePumps: I feel the same as you-that I can do a better job than the pros! They don't care since it isn't their house. I do a great job painting and you really can't tell what rooms I painted vs what was professionally done. It's such a simple DIY, you just have to take the time to prep right!
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We did our whole house (3,000 sq ft with a 2 story foyer) including ceilings, closets, trim, doors, etc. The only thing we did not do was the garage - which I will now need to figure out!
Anyways - I believe I paid $6-7K for that. However, I should note that we gutted nearly the whole house. So for the trim work they were able to spray (which gives a better finish look I think) without 100% of the standard prep bc they could trash the subfloor.
If I remember correctly they painted the ceilings spraying them with little prep work. Then they prepped like crazy (literally a day of prep) for all the trim painting (we have some 'poor mans wainscoting' too), they painted the trim via spray. Then after a day or so came back and rolled/trimmed the walls. It was quite a process - but we got a good price.
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@Boogs: Not really. Most of our family are already helping us a lot with the renovations and babysitting for us while we deal with contractors, so I don't want to ask them to do painting on top of everything else. Plus, we want the job to be done as quickly as possible, so we can move in after it's completed
@wheres_c: That's what I'm scared of if I used a handyman. I'm just not sure how good his work would be
@ValentineMommy: I'm glad you had a good experience using a handyman!
@PurplePumps: That sounds awful! I wonder if it makes a difference who the pros are, like if it's a corporate company or a locally owned business. Our painters are also the owners of their business, so they have more at stake if they do a bad job. They get most of their business from referrals.
@Mrs D: Sounds like you got a good price!
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I appreciate everyones responses. Still talking it over with hubby, but it's looking more and more like we're going with the handyman. The savings would be great for us, especially since we are doing some renovations to the house. I'm not sure 15k for painting is in our budget right now, and if we did pay that, we would have to cut out other things that I really want like new light fixtures. The handyman has done some small jobs for us, and DH has been impressed with his work and attention to detail, so he thinks his painting would be good too.
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@aprild: will you be around to check the progress as the handyman is painting? That way as he finishes a room you could check for problems and point then out so he can fix them before moving on to the next room, if there are any. I have a very picky friend who basically did this through her whole house. And it could put your mind at ease.
And my DH insists on doing everything himself, so just paying for the handyman sounds pretty great to me.
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@Foodnerd81: We aren't currently living at the house, but I'm planning to stop in a few times a day while he's working to check on the progress of things. I think it would help put my mind at ease to see how things are going and hopefully catch any mistakes. That's a good suggestion!
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@aprild: how did it go using the handyman? In a similar position getting bids from painters and one guy is way cheaper. Curious how it turned out for you. Thanks in advance!
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@LilacWine: I think he did a pretty good job. If I look very closely, I can notice little mistakes like where his line isn't completely straight where the wall and ceiling meet (not everywhere, just in a couple of spots), but I know I'm a really picky perfectionist. I don't know for certain the painting company would have done any better, but I do know that even if they did, it wouldn't have been worth twice as much! I'm glad I went with the cheaper option in this case
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@aprild: thanks! Such a tough call!
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