How Much Paint for a 9x9 Room?
Paint needed
1.5 gallons
A 9 by 9 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
A nine by nine room and an eight by ten room take exactly the same paint. One has 81 square feet of floor and the other has 80, but both have 36 feet of perimeter, and paint goes on the walls.
That is the single most useful thing on this page. Wall paint follows the perimeter, not the floor area, and the two only track each other for rooms that are roughly square. A 4 by 16 room has the same 64 square feet of floor as an 8 by 8 but 40 feet of perimeter against 32, so it takes a quarter more paint.
Flooring, by contrast, follows the floor area exactly. This is why an estimate that prices painting per square foot of floor is wrong on any room that is long and narrow, and why the number to measure on site is the perimeter and the ceiling height.
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 a 9x9 room?
About 1.44 gallons for two coats on eight foot walls, so buy two gallons.
Why does a 9x9 room need the same paint as an 8x10?
Because both have 36 feet of perimeter. Paint covers walls, and wall area is perimeter times height, so the floor area barely matters.
Can I estimate paint from floor area?
Only roughly, and only on square rooms. A long narrow room has far more wall per square foot of floor, so measure the perimeter instead.
The paint calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.