Whole-House Paint Schedule

One order beats six

Painting room by room means six trips, six mixes and six chances for the same color code to come back looking slightly different. Paint is mixed to order from a tinting base, and two batches of the same code genuinely can differ — enough to see on a long wall in daylight.

Schedule the whole house, buy each color in one batch, and box it: pour every can of that color into one container and stir before you start. It is the only way to guarantee the last wall matches the first.

Every surface is its own line

A room is not one entry. Walls, ceiling, trim and doors are four different paints in four different sheens, and lumping them together is how people end up with flat paint on trim.

• Walls — usually eggshell or satin.
• Ceiling — flat, and a different product. Ceiling paint is formulated not to drip and not to flash.
• Trim and doors — satin or semi-gloss, and often a different base entirely.

Spread rate is not one number

A gallon covers about 400 sq ft on smooth, previously painted wall, 350 on typical wall, and 300 on textured or porous surfaces. Fresh drywall and bare plaster drink the first coat, which is what primer is for.

The spreadsheet has a spread-rate column per line so a textured ceiling and a smooth wall do not get the same assumption. These are the same figures the paint calculator uses.

Write the code down while you have it

The color name is not enough. You need the brand, the exact code, the base and the sheen — that is what the counter asks for, and in three years the tin will be gone. The schedule captures it as you plan, and the paint record card is where it lives afterwards.

Order the rooms before you buy

Paint goes on after drywall and before flooring and trim in most rooms, but not all of them. The order of operations guide covers what has to happen first.