

Always round the required amount of paint up, because you can use that paint in the future to touch up and remove stains and areas of wear and tear. Are you painting in a light or dark colour? If you’re using a dark colour, you will probably require a tinted primer, too.Are you repainting a wall, or painting bare drywall? Drywall will absorb more paint, which means you’ll need to buy slightly more paint, even if you’ve coated it with a primer.There are a few things you’ll need to consider when calculating how much paint to buy.

Paint required = paintable surface area / 6.5įor this example, you’ll need to purchase 3 litres of paint. Let’s return to the example above, and calculate how much paint is required. So, to calculate how many litres of paint you will need, divide the total paintable surface area by 6.5. = 19.3 metres squared How Much Paint to BuyĪs a general rule, 1 litre of paint will cover between 6 and 6.5 metres squared of wall. The total paintable surface can be calculated as follows:ĭoor and window surface area = (1 x 1.9) + (2 x 1.4) Say this room has one door, and two windows. For each door, subtract 1.9 metres squared, and for each window, subtract 1.4 metres squared. Now, consider the number of doors and windows. The total surface area of your room is 24 metres squared. To illustrate, imagine the perimeter of the room 12m, and the height of the walls is 2m.

Multiply the perimeter and the height, and you’ve calculated the total surface area of the walls in your room. Now, it's fairly easy to calculate this.įirst, you will need to measure the length of each wall, and add them together. This surface area should include all of the walls and even the doors if you're planning to paint them. The first thing you will need to do is calculate the surface area you plan to paint.
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Here’s how to calculate how much paint to buy. The bottom line is that you’ll want to ensure your estimate is accurate. In the end, it's a total waste of your hard-earned money. The terrible thing about this is that it will most likely dry up and be completely unusable before you even work out when you'll most likely be using it. It's important to work this out accurately because buying too much paint will leave you with a whole bunch of paint cans that will remain untouched in your outdoor shed or garage. Whether you plan on painting the interior, painting the exterior of your home or just a bedroom, you’ll need to calculate how much paint to buy.
