Interior Painting: Ceilings, Walls & Trim
Your ceiling, walls, doors and trim make up the majority of most interior painting projects. Below, you’ll find our pricing for a standard room, what’s included, and factors that can affect the final cost. We try to be as informative and descriptive as possible here to avoid issues.
When estimating painting costs, you primarily measure wall square footage, not floor space. You’ll need to calculate the area of all the walls to be painted, including the height and width of each wall. While some trim and other details might be measured in linear feet, the main area calculation is based on wall square footage. The total square footage of the walls in a 12×12 room, excluding ceiling, is 384 square feet. So, when measuring a room, you are painting 384 square feet on a single coat and 768 square feet on a full two coats. This is how we also
calculate our paint usage across areas or a whole house fairly accurately.
Our Standard Room
We define a standard room as:
- 12 x 12 x 9 ft or smaller
- No more than two doors and two standard windows (bay windows and related ‘extra’ spaces in a room are a bit extra)
- Walls painted in light/neutral colors
- Ceiling and trim already painted white
- Room is completely emptied of all furniture
- Closets are NOT included in a room price.
ALL PRICES ARE BASED ON A COMPLETELY EMPTY ROOM. WE DO NOT MOVE FURNITURE. If items cannot be removed, additional charges may apply.
Base Pricing
- Walls: $225 (two coats, edged and rolled)
- Ceiling: $95 (one coat)
- Baseboards: $55 (one coat white)
When Prices Increase
Kitchens
Require more handwork around cabinets, appliances, and fixtures, plus surface cleaning. Typical range: $225–$300.
Bathrooms
Small hall baths: $225–$250. Many standard larger master baths can reach $300. Factors include tight spaces, ‘toilet rooms’, hard to access walls such as those
over corner style tubs and multiple fixtures.
Any Two Story Spaces
These areas carry much more risk than average painting, take much long and require some pretty extensive prep and protection. Even at what is a very low industry
sq. ft rate they can be almost as much as the rest of the home. The prices does include needed scaffolding and ladders as well as the transportation, setup, teardown
and removal.
| Scope | Surface Area | Rate | Est. Labor Charge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walls only | 1,536 sq ft | $2.00 / sq ft | $3,072 |
| Walls + Ceiling | 2,112 sq ft | $3.00 / sq ft | $6,336 |
| Walls + Ceiling + Trim | 2,200 sq ft | $3.50 / sq ft | $7,700 |
And these are actually super reasonable prices considering current painters are charging $3-$12 / sq ft.
Due to the insane costs of these areas, we generally look for any possible ways to reduce the costs. This might include the customer taking on some responsibility such as covering of items, allowance of extra time to complete the area (slow is always better, these are NOT the areas to rush the painting work!), use of higher quality paints to ensure proper and reliable coverage, location of the property, etc. There are a LOT of methods we can employ here for a better if not drastically lower price.
A Room Must Be Completely Empty
There is a HUGE risk in painting a room with furniture or belongings in it. Paint droplets and float can go incredible distances. The inability to COMPLETELY cover floors opens the chance of a droplet reaching flooring or walking across tarps with drops pushing droplets through. The danger of damage to furniture and injury from running into it. The inability to properly paint due to a lack of clearance. The reasons are many so we must ask for this to be done. In the cases where it cannot be done, we will require a waiver from the customer acknowledging the risk involved. This is by far one of the most critical parts of a safe and clean work environment! For more info on why https://paintsaintlouis.com/emptyrooms/
Larger Rooms
Extra square footage adds time but may be balanced with smaller areas. Height over 10–12 ft is the main cost driver.
Closets
Closets are NOT included in your basic room price and can vary greatly in price due to size however a simple coat closet might run $10-20 for a single coat of white where a walk in type closet being painted two coats (needed for ALL colors) starts around $175. They are generally based on size, how much shelving (especially wire shelving), brackets, how many of these items must be cut/edged around and such are all factors in the pricing. As you can see closets can vary wildly in price.
Other Price Factors
- Extra coats for dark/vibrant colors
- Textured walls/ceilings – this can include sand textures, plaster textures, orange peel, knockdown textures and similar
- Primer coats
- Stain or smoke damage
Stairwells
Start at a standard room price and increase for special prep (e.g., carpet meeting drywall) or extra height requiring special equipment.
Trim Work
- Baseboards: $55 (tile/hardwood), $55–$60 (carpet)
- Chair rails: from $55
- Crown molding: from $65
- Prices assume already-painted surfaces and one coat. Stained or oil-based surfaces require extra prep, similar to cabinet painting.
Doors
Doors, due to what is involved, can be fairly expensive however there are ways you can save substantially by doing some of the very easy stuff yourself which saves us a lot of time.
✅ Standard Conditions (Good condition door, minor prep, same color)
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Labor rate: $90 – $110
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Scope: Single 6-panel interior door + frame/jamb, both sides, two finish coats, minimal patching/sanding, same color (no drastic change)
⚠️ Enhanced Conditions (More prep or complexity)
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Labor rate: $120 – $150
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Conditions: Heavy prep required (sanding, fill gouges), color change (dark to light), wood conversion (stained wood to painted surface), frame with elaborate molding, unusual door size or multiple door faces, or tight access
Note to clients:
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These prices cover the labor portion only; paint, primer, large repairs, hardware removal/reinstallation may add cost.
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Final quote will depend on the door’s condition, number of sides, frame complexity, and color change scope and in cases where a door cannot be removed and must be painted in place..
- Customers can opt to save by ‘stripping down’ a door themselves and having the raw door available. We do the usual painting and once ready customer remounts hardware and door themselves.
Special Work Hours Or Requirements
- As all work is based on a flat rate system and not by the hour we generally choose to work to a set goal each day and in occupied residential homes have found we can generally guarantee completion of a room each work day if began by 10 am can be done by 1-2 pm and fully back to service by 4 meaning the room can be put back to use the same day. This usually means 4-5 hours on site per day. In empty jobs we generally work longer hours as there is more space at once we can complete so no standing around watching the paint dry. In some cases, however a customer may have specific requests per the time or hours worked per day which can change the aspects of how we calculate the prices. In those cases, we may change to a per hour billing format at $50/hr for anything up to eight hours and $75 an hour for all work over eight hours. This may be needed if there is an urgent or set deadline for a project completion. A good instance would be a customer needs us there promptly at 8 am. Due to the time we risk spending in rush hour traffic and that workers are paid when they leave the shop and not their arrival time on site having them get stuck in traffic for extended periods costs money which would have to be considered as part of the final pricing. To avoid this we have slightly different hours we work which avoids this and keeps your prices as low as possible.
What’s Included
Labor and all standard tools/materials (except paint): tarps, plastic, tape, masking paper, brushes, rollers, buckets, screens, ladders, and one roll of painter’s tape per room.
Customer purchases paint separately through our Sherwin-Williams commercial account and receives our full discount on their entire product line, including primers and sealers.
Minor prep (small hole filling, light caulking) is included. Large repairs (nail pops, cracks, holes, tv mounts) are extra. We do NOT do substantial drywall repairs but can recommend a mud/tape contractor as well as one that can float walls.
Price Comparison
We reviewed our pricing using very popular home improvement site Homewyze using their calculator to price the range of costs associated with painting just the walls in a standard 12 x 12 room in our zip code and it’s crazy but these are current normal going rates for pro painting now. With paint a single coat walls only paint job runs $500 – $1000 now. With standard grade Sherwin products (they retail for about $75 a gal), all the labor and materials… we can do the same space for just a bit over 300 total and on average a full hour quicker!
Service Area & Travel
Prices apply within our standard service area (within 45 minutes of St. Louis Metro). This includes Jefferson County, eastern Franklin County, southern St. Charles, western St. Louis County (south of I-70), central St. Louis County, south St. Louis City, and parts of St. Clair and Monroe Counties. Outside areas may have a travel fee. During the winter months some areas may not be serviceable or at a minimum require special scheduling agreements.
Pricing effective October 2025
