Professional house painting cost $5,000 to $21,000 for a whole home interior and $5,000 to $20,000 for a whole home exterior in 2026, depending on your state, home size, and surface condition. Individual rooms run $500 to $3,500. Davis Painting serves Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, and the full ranges are published below.
Most painting companies will not answer this question. The standard response is “it depends, let us come out and take a look.” That is technically true and practically useless when you are trying to work out whether a project belongs in this year’s budget or next year’s. So here are real numbers, along with the part most cost pages leave out: what actually moves a project from the bottom of a range to the top, and what it means when a quote comes in below all of them.
2026 Planning Ranges
What should you expect to spend?
Pick your state and your project. You will get the same market range a professional estimator would use as a starting point, before seeing your surfaces.
Standard bedroom, Pennsylvania
$700 to $1,200
These are general market based budgeting ranges for informational purposes only. They are not quotes, estimates, offers, or guarantees of pricing from Davis Painting. Actual pricing depends on surface condition, preparation requirements, materials, number of coats, colors, accessibility, architectural complexity, and other project specific conditions. Home square footage is a general reference only. The written Davis Painting proposal and scope of work determine what is included in each project.
In this article:
What do individual rooms cost to paint professionally in 2026?
Professional room painting cost in 2026 ranges from $500 for a standard bathroom to $3,500 for a two story foyer, depending on the state, the room size, and whether the scope covers walls only or walls plus ceiling, trim, and doors.
Pennsylvania House Painting Cost
| Project | Typical Range |
| Standard Bedroom | $700 to $1,200 |
| Primary Bedroom | $900 to $1,600 |
| Bathroom | $500 to $900 |
| Dining Room | $800 to $1,500 |
| Family / Living Room | $900 to $1,800 |
| Kitchen (excluding cabinets) | $700 to $1,300 |
| Hallway | $500 to $1,000 |
| Two Story Foyer | $1,500 to $3,000 |
| Kitchen Cabinet Painting | $4,000 to $8,000 |
New Jersey House Painting Cost
| Project | Typical Range |
| Standard Bedroom | $750 to $1,300 |
| Primary Bedroom | $1,000 to $1,800 |
| Bathroom | $550 to $1,000 |
| Dining Room | $900 to $1,600 |
| Family / Living Room | $1,000 to $2,000 |
| Kitchen (excluding cabinets) | $800 to $1,500 |
| Hallway | $600 to $1,200 |
| Two Story Foyer | $1,750 to $3,500 |
| Kitchen Cabinet Painting | $4,500 to $9,000 |
Delaware House Painting Cost
| Project | Typical Range |
| Standard Bedroom | $700 to $1,200 |
| Primary Bedroom | $900 to $1,600 |
| Bathroom | $500 to $900 |
| Dining Room | $800 to $1,500 |
| Family / Living Room | $900 to $1,800 |
| Kitchen (excluding cabinets) | $700 to $1,300 |
| Hallway | $500 to $1,000 |
| Two Story Foyer | $1,500 to $3,000 |
| Kitchen Cabinet Painting | $4,000 to $8,000 |
Connecticut House Painting Cost
| Project | Typical Range |
| Standard Bedroom | $800 to $1,400 |
| Primary Bedroom | $1,000 to $1,900 |
| Bathroom | $550 to $1,000 |
| Dining Room | $900 to $1,700 |
| Family / Living Room | $1,000 to $2,100 |
| Kitchen (excluding cabinets) | $800 to $1,500 |
| Hallway | $600 to $1,200 |
| Two Story Foyer | $1,750 to $3,500 |
| Kitchen Cabinet Painting | $4,500 to $9,000 |
A walls only bedroom is not the same scope as walls, ceiling, trim, and doors. The ranges above represent typical professionally completed projects rather than one fixed scope. A bathroom with moisture damage sits at the top of its range. A hallway with clean drywall and no trim work sits at the bottom of its.
What does a whole home interior or exterior repaint cost in 2026?
Whole home interior painting costs range from $5,000 for a 1,500-square-foot home in Pennsylvania or Delaware to $21,000 or more for a 3,000-square-foot home in Connecticut. Whole-home exterior painting ranges from $5,000 for a 2,000-square-foot home to $20,000 or more for a 3,500-square-foot home.
Whole home interior painting cost
A typical interior project may include walls and ceilings, baseboards and standard door and window trim, standard interior doors and door frames, minor nail hole filling and normal surface preparation, and professional grade materials.
| Home Size | PA | NJ | DE | CT |
| 1,500 sq ft | $5,000 to $9,000 | $6,000 to $10,500 | $5,000 to $9,000 | $6,000 to $11,000 |
| 2,000 sq ft | $7,000 to $12,000 | $8,000 to $14,000 | $7,000 to $12,000 | $8,000 to $15,000 |
| 3,000 sq ft | $10,000 to $17,000+ | $12,000 to $20,000+ | $10,000 to $17,000+ | $12,000 to $21,000+ |
Whole home exterior painting cost
A typical exterior project may include all standard paintable elevations, paintable siding, fascia and soffits, standard exterior trim and corner boards, standard door and window trim, basic scraping and preparation, normal caulking, spot priming where appropriate, and professional grade exterior coatings.
| Home Size | PA | NJ | DE | CT |
| Around 2,000 sq ft | $5,000 to $8,500 | $6,000 to $10,000 | $5,000 to $8,500 | $6,000 to $10,000 |
| Around 2,500 sq ft | $6,000 to $10,000 | $7,000 to $12,000 | $6,000 to $10,000 | $7,000 to $12,000 |
| 3,500+ sq ft | $9,000 to $16,000+ | $11,000 to $20,000+ | $9,000 to $16,000+ | $11,000 to $20,000+ |
Floor square footage is only a budgeting reference. Two 2,500-square-foot homes can have dramatically different paintable areas, rooflines, elevations, window counts, trim packages, and access requirements. A center-hall colonial and a sprawling ranch with identical floor area are not comparable exterior painting cost projects.
What deferring an exterior repaint actually costs
Exterior paint is a protective system before it is a color choice. Once the coating fails and the substrate is exposed, the clock starts on the material underneath it. Water reaches bare wood, freeze and thaw cycles work it open, and what was a repaint becomes a repaint plus carpentry.
The arithmetic is worth understanding. Rotted wood replacement, fascia and soffit repair, and trim carpentry are routinely the largest single line item on an exterior estimate, and they are the one item that was entirely avoidable eighteen months earlier. A home that needed an $8,000 repaint in 2026 can need a $13,000 repaint with carpentry in 2028. The paint did not get more expensive. The scope did.
What determines where your project lands, and what a low quote actually means
The single biggest driver of painting cost is preparation, not paint. A home with sound, previously painted surfaces sits near the bottom of its range. A home with peeling coatings, damaged substrate, or extensive repair needs sits near the top or beyond it.
Interior conditions that move a project above these ranges
Extensive drywall or plaster repair, skim coating, wallpaper removal, or popcorn ceiling removal. Water, smoke, nicotine, or other stain remediation. Heavy sanding or extensive peeling coatings. Kitchen cabinets, built ins, or specialty decorative finishes. Wood staining, clear coat refinishing, or oil to latex conversions. Unusually detailed trim, extensive crown molding, wainscoting, or custom millwork. Three story access, lifts, or scaffolding. Major furniture moving, lead safe renovation requirements, or hazardous material remediation.
Exterior conditions that move a project above these ranges
Wood window sashes, glazing restoration, storm windows, or detailed window grids. Shutters, decks, porches, railings, fences, detached garages, or sheds unless specifically included. Deteriorated wood replacement or significant carpentry. Heavy peeling, extensive scraping, paint stripping, or specialty primer systems. Bare or specialty substrates including stucco, masonry, or brick. Difficult ladder placements, steep roof access, or hard to reach elevations. Three story elevations requiring scaffolding or boom lifts. Landscaping restricting access, or major color changes requiring additional coats.
What it means when a quote comes in well below these ranges
This is the part most cost pages will not write, so here it is plainly. When a quote for a whole home interior arrives at half the bottom of the published range, the difference is almost never efficiency. It is scope. Something was removed to reach that number, and it is worth knowing what before you sign.
The usual candidates, roughly in order of frequency:
One coat instead of two. A single coat over an existing color looks acceptable on day one and shows roller variation and burn through within a season, particularly on any color change. Two coats is the standard for a reason.
No primer on repairs or stains. Patched drywall absorbs paint differently than the wall around it. Skipping primer on repairs produces visible flashing, those dull patches that appear exactly where the repairs were, once the light hits the wall at an angle.
Builder grade materials. There is a real cost difference between contractor grade paint and premium product, and it shows up in scrub resistance, coverage, and how the finish holds after three years of cleaning.
Trim, ceilings, doors, or closets quietly excluded. The most common one. The quote covers walls, the homeowner assumed a room, and the difference surfaces on the first day.
Minimal surface preparation. No degreasing, no sanding of glossy surfaces, no caulking of gaps. Preparation is the majority of the labor on a quality job, so it is also the easiest place to cut invisibly.
Unlicensed or uninsured labor. Ask for the certificate of insurance. A contractor operating without it is transferring liability to your homeowner policy.
The most useful thing you can do with three quotes is not compare the totals. Instead, line up the written scopes side by side and see whether they describe the same project. According to the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America, surface preparation is the primary determinant of both coating performance and painting cost in residential. Two quotes for the same house that differ significantly are usually pricing two different levels of preparation.
Get an Exact Price for Your Home
Every home is different. These ranges exist to help you plan, and they should get you close enough to know whether a project fits this year. The only way to get an actual number for your specific property is a project specific estimate based on the real condition of your surfaces and the real scope of your work.
Schedule a painting estimate with Davis Painting and get pricing based on the actual condition, surfaces, and scope of your project, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, or Connecticut.
