How Much Paint for an 8x10 Room?
Paint needed
1.5 gallons
An 8 by 10 room with eight foot walls, one door, one window, two coats.
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How that number is worked out
These are the figures this page was built with and every line the calculator produces from them. Change anything above and all of it moves.
- Room perimeter, add all walls36 ft
- Wall height8 ft
- Doors1
- Windows1
- Coats2
- Coverage per gallon350 sq ft
Paint needed1.5 gallons
| Gross wall area | 288 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Less doors and windows | -36 sq ft |
| Net wall area | 252 sq ft |
| Area over 2 coats | 504 sq ft |
| Gallons, exact | 1.44 |
| Buy | 2 gallonsor 1 five gallon pail |
The material list this produces
| Paint, gallons | 2 |
|---|---|
| Primer, gallons (if bare or color change) | 1 |
| Painter's tape, rolls | 1 |
Coats compared
Coats is the input people get wrong, usually by hoping. Same room, one coat to three.
| Coats | Paint needed |
|---|---|
| 1 coat | 0.75 gallons |
| 2 coats | 1.5 gallons |
| 3 coats | 2.25 gallons |
What else matters here
Eight by ten is the standard second bedroom, and this is the size people ask about more than any other. Thirty six feet of perimeter by eight feet is 288 square feet gross, 252 after a door and a window, and two coats of that is 1.44 gallons.
Buy two gallons. The exact figure is one and a half, but paint is not sold in halves, a gallon and two quarts costs more than two gallons in most stores, and running out three quarters of the way through the second coat means a second trip and a batch that may not match.
Batch matching is not a small point. Tinted paint is mixed to a formula but pigment dispensers drift, and two gallons bought a week apart can differ enough to see on a long wall in side light. Buy it all at once and box it together in a bucket if the job is more than one gallon.
What this calculator assumes
- A door is taken as 21 sq ft and a window as 15 sq ft. Deducting them matters on a small room and barely moves a big one.
- 350 sq ft per gallon is the usual figure on a smooth primed wall. Bare drywall, textured walls and deep color changes all drink more, so drop it to 300 if any of those apply.
- Ceilings and trim are not included. Run the ceiling as its own area.
Questions people ask
How much paint for an 8x10 room?
About 1.44 gallons for two coats on eight foot walls, so buy two gallons.
Will one gallon cover an 8x10 room?
One coat, yes. Two coats needs a gallon and a half, which in practice means buying two.
Why buy all the paint at once?
Tinted colors can vary slightly between mixes. Buying together and boxing the gallons into one bucket removes any chance of a visible difference between walls.
The paint calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.