Nick May from Walls by Design, a paint contractor in Denver, answers today’s question.
Today’s question is – how often do I need to paint?
That is all up to you. I have painted for some homeowners after three years or bedrooms after two years. We’ve repainted a whole entire house maybe eight years after doing it the previous time. Interior paint, for the most part, doesn’t necessarily wear out. Now, if you use a very low quality paint, if you use flat, a lot of times there’s no durability on those surfaces, and so it will look dirty and worn out and those kinds of things.
There’s a lot of factors that come into play, but I would say the biggest factor for interior painting on how often you should paint is trends. People get tired…for a long time, here in Denver at least, we were going darker and darker and darker to the point where we got chocolate browns on walls and ceilings, and about two or three years ago we kind of hit the tipping point in switch and now we’re going to light gray, a lot of light colors – off whites, light taupe – so very much more light and bright. That is probably the biggest factor of when to paint, and I would say trends typically stick around for about a decade. So you’re going to get 8, 10, 12 years out of your paint job just from a décor standpoint.
Let me remind you that painting your house is the least expensive thing you can do that transforms a space. Think about it, my average project size is about $3500. Think about other décor things in your house that you can spend on for $3500. You can get a part of a dining room set. You may get a chest of drawers. You can’t really do much in your kitchen. You can repaint your kitchen cabinets but there’s no way you can reface them or change them out. Painting, for the dollar, goes further than anything you can do interior design-wise. So I hope that helps.
