The Weight of Money

Painting a room is often the quick, cheap decorating fix listed in books and magazines, but is that really the case? We just moved into a new house and my new craft room was dripping with old-lady style, hideous wallpaper and old molted brown carpeting. Having just bought the house, there wasn’t much cash for drastic improvements so I decided to give the old “just add paint” approach a try (photos at the end).

Painting seems like a simple choice until you consider the materials needed. Luckily, we had several on hand, but I’ll approximate their purchase value to give an approximate cost.

The project…
The room was 12×18 feet with three windows, one front door, and two entry ways. The carpet was removed (revealing rough, somewhat damaged plywood) and the walls stripped of wallpaper all the way down to bare plaster. Instead of installing another flooring option, such as new carpet or sheet vinyl, I decided to just paint the plywood floors to save some cash.

Materials:
- med. paint brush, $10*
- paint roller, $15*
- 2 roller sleeves, $12 (one for plaster, one for floors)
- roller extension, $10*
- handheld paint pail, $10* (very nice to have)
- paint pail liners, $5* (very convenient)
- roller tray $8* (turned out to be a waste, the roller grid was much better)
- roller tray liners, $5*
- paint stirrer (attaches to drill), $4
- 5-in-1 painters tool (for cleaning rollers), $5
- paint brush comb (for cleaning brushes), $4
- paint roller grid, $3
- 5 gallon bucket, $6
- 5 gallons primer, $75 (used about 3 gallons)
- 2 gallons wall paint, $40 (used little more than 1 gallon)
- 2 gallons floor paint, $40 (used less than 1 gallon)
- 1 gallon trim paint, $22 (used 1/8 of a gallon)
- painters tape, $20 (this stuff is expensive)
*items I already owned

Cost of primer used: $45
Cost of paint used: $43

Total cost of supplies: $117
Total cost of paint/primer: $177 (but I only used $88 worth)

Total Price of Supplies and Paint: $294
Actual Cost factoring in paint used: $205
Amount Spent (excludes on hand items): $223

Overall Results…
I’m pleased with the price and outcome, spending about $200 on the room seems like the right price for what I got. We actually spent more because we used a product, Peel Away, to remove the lead-based paint from two of the windows before painting them. It was about $20-30 a window for the peel away and a very messy and labor intensive process (when it came time for cleanup). Lead abatement is my least favorite activity right now, but thats material for a post on the joys of older homes.

Time wise, I’d say that it took me 3 hours to remove the carpet, clean away the foam residue, and prep the floor for priming; 2 hours to remove all the wall paper and prep wall for painting; 2 hours to paint the walls; 1 hour to paint the floor; 1 hour to paint the trim; and 4 hours of cleanup; for a total of 13 hours of work. This doesn’t include necessary drying times between coats, the 3 hours per window for using the peel away, or the 2 hours per window for scraping the window sashes (which still need repainted and reinstalled).

More on the flooring…
I decided to paint the rough plywood floors to save some money. All of the decent vinyl flooring options I found were running at least $1.50/sq. foot with more acceptable options running around $2.00-$2.50. Also, since the plywood was damaged, I would need to replace it and add leveling compound if I wanted the new vinyl floor to last for a while.

The room is 216 sq. feet, the starting costs for vinyl ran from a total of $324 ($1.50 option) to $540 ($2.50 option) before factoring in replacing the plywood (which appears to be running around $10 a sheet, I think). Painting the floor for just under $45 in paint was clearly a better cost option for me.

To make the floors looks a little better than just painted plywood, I used a router and carved lines in it to give it the appearance of being a hardwood floor. It’s a cute faux floor look that masks the fact that it is just plywood. So far I’ve reived positive feedback from those who’ve seen it and I’m very happy with the results.

Before Picture:

After Picture:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under general, housing, savings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.