Interior house painting, where prep is the entire job

What is interior house painting?

Interior house painting is the preparation and coating of walls, ceilings and trim inside the home. The visible part - rolling paint - is a small fraction of the labour. The rest is protection, filling, sanding, caulking, spot-priming and cutting clean lines, and it is where essentially the entire price difference between quotes lives. A typical whole-house repaint runs several days to a couple of weeks depending on how much trim is involved.

Signs you need interior house painting

• Walls are scuffed, marked or patched and cleaning no longer improves them
• You are moving in, moving out, or preparing a property for sale or letting
• Colours are dated, or previous owners left choices you have never liked
• Paint is peeling or flaking around a bathroom, a kitchen or a window
• There are repaired patches or new drywall that has never been finished properly
• Nail pops, cracks at corners, or settlement cracking has appeared and needs filling as well as painting
• The existing sheen shows every roller mark and imperfection under side light

Seeing something not on this list? Browse painting problems by symptom →

How interior house painting actually works

1. 1

   Walkthrough and scope agreement

   A proper estimate walks every room and records what is being painted - walls only, or walls plus ceilings plus trim plus doors plus closet interiors - and what condition the surfaces are in. Scope, not square footage, is the price.

   Watch forA quote that says "paint interior" and gives a number. Ceilings, closets, door frames and the inside of the front door are the four things routinely assumed by the homeowner and excluded by the painter.

2. 2

   Protection and masking

   Furniture is moved or centred and covered, floors are protected wall to wall, and fixtures, hardware and edges are masked. On a whole-house job this is genuinely a day's work before any paint is opened.

   Watch forA crew that starts painting on day one. Protection is the first visible signal of how the rest of the job will be done.

3. 3

   Cleaning and de-glossing

   Surfaces are washed where they are greasy or dusty - kitchens and bathrooms especially - and glossy existing paint is sanded or chemically de-glossed so the new coat has something to grip.

   Watch forNew paint applied over an unwashed kitchen wall. Cooking residue is invisible and paint will not bond through it. The failure appears as peeling months later, in exactly the room you least want it.

4. 4

   Filling, sanding and caulking

   Holes and dents are filled, cracks opened out and repaired, and the filler sanded flush. Gaps between trim and wall are caulked. This is the single largest labour item on most interior jobs.

   Watch forFiller applied and painted without sanding. It shows permanently under any raking light, and no number of coats hides it. Ask to see a wall after filling and before painting.

5. 5

   Spot priming and full priming

   Repairs, bare drywall and stains are primed so they do not flash - appear as dull patches through the finish. Full priming is used for big colour changes, over stains, and on new surfaces.

   Watch forWater stains painted over without a stain-blocking primer. They bleed back through, sometimes within days. This is a specific product choice, not something extra coats solve.

6. 6

   Cutting in and rolling

   Edges at ceilings, corners and trim are cut in by brush, and the field is rolled. Ceilings are painted first, then walls, then trim, so overspill runs downhill through the sequence.

   Watch forWavy or shadowed cut lines at the ceiling. It is the most visible mark of skill in the whole trade, and it is the first thing to look at when you walk a finished room.

7. 7

   Second coat and coverage

   Most colour changes need two full coats regardless of what the tin claims. One-coat coverage is a laboratory result over a controlled substrate, not a real-world repaint over a different colour.

   Watch forA quote that does not state a coat count. Get "two coats" written in. It is the most common place a low quote is quietly hiding its saving.

8. 8

   Trim, doors and final inspection

   Trim and doors are usually finished last, with a harder-wearing product. The job ends with a walkthrough under good light, with a punch list agreed before the crew packs up.

   Watch forA walkthrough done at dusk or with the lights off. Defects show under side light and daylight. Do the inspection when you can actually see the walls.

What does interior house painting cost?

Interior painting is usually quoted by room or by the whole job rather than per square foot, and labour is the overwhelming majority of it. What moves the number is the amount of preparation, whether trim and ceilings are included, and coat count. See the Cost Guide for ranges.

See the full interior house painting cost guide - by material, size and region →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →