Bedroom paint calculator

A typical bedroom needs about 1 gallon + 3 quarts

Based on a standard 12 × 11 ft bedroom with 8-ft ceilings, the walls work out to about 332 sq ft after subtracting 1 door and 1 window. A standard two-coat repaint needs roughly 1 gallon + 3 quarts of quality interior paint. The recommended finish for a bedroom is eggshell — more on why below.

Pick A Color That Works At Night

A bedroom is mostly seen at the edges of the day — dim morning light and warm lamp light at night. Cool grays that look crisp at the paint store can turn flat and gloomy under a 2700K bulb. Test your top two colors on the wall and look at them after dark with your actual lamps on, not just in daylight. Soft greens, warm whites, muted blues, and greige tend to hold up across both.

Eggshell On Walls, Not Flat

Bedrooms get handled more than people expect: light switches, headboards rubbing the wall, a hand steadying you in the dark. Flat paint looks lovely but burnishes shiny wherever you wipe it. Eggshell gives a soft, low sheen that takes a damp cloth without leaving a mark. Save semi-gloss for the trim and door, where you want the contrast and the extra scrub resistance.

When An Accent Wall Earns Its Keep

The wall behind the headboard is the natural accent — it frames the bed and you never stare at it while lying down. One deeper wall plus three calm walls reads intentional; a single bold color on all four can feel like the room is closing in, especially in a 12 × 11 space. An accent wall here is roughly 11 ft × 8 ft, well under half a gallon, so a quart of your accent color usually covers two coats.

How the bedroom paint math works

Wall area is perimeter × ceiling height: (2 × 12 + 2 × 11) = 46 ft of perimeter, times a 8-ft ceiling, equals 368 sq ft of gross wall. We subtract 21 sq ft per door and 15 sq ft per window, leaving about 332 sq ft of paintable wall. Multiply by the number of coats, divide by a coverage rate of about 388 sq ft per gallon, and round up to the nearest quart — that is the number you take to the store. Change any input in the calculator above and it recalculates instantly.

Paint needed by coats

Two coats is the right default for almost every repaint. Use one coat only for a same-color refresh, and three for dark-over-light changes or vivid colors that cannot hide in two. The ceiling adds 132 sq ft (length × width) when you choose to paint it — usually a separate flat-white product, so most people buy a dedicated gallon for it.

What it costs to paint a bedroom

Doing it yourself, the paint for two coats runs about $70–$123 (roughly 1.75 gal at $40–$70 a gallon), plus $50–$100 in supplies — rollers, brushes, tape, trays, and a drop cloth. That is your whole cost if you bring the labor.

Hiring a painter changes the math: most pros charge $2–$5 per square foot of floor area, so a 132 sq ft bedroom lands around $264–$660. Labor is 75–95% of an interior bill because prep, cutting in, and cleanup eat the hours. For a full paint-plus-labor breakdown, use the paint cost calculator.

Paint cost by brand

Coverage is similar (about 350–400 sq ft per gallon) across the major interior lines, so the price tier is what moves your bill. These are current per-gallon prices for the brands the calculator can price for you — pick one in the result panel above and it multiplies your gallons for this bedroom into an exact paint cost:

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