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Interior Painting Cost Calculator Ontario (2026): Walls, Ceilings, Trim and Doors Priced Separately, New Drywall or Repaint, With HST
Drywall, Taping & PaintingFree Calculator
What Should Interior Painting Cost? Walls, Ceilings, Trim and Doors as Four Separate Numbers, Which Is How a Painter Actually Prices It.
New drywall with primer or a repaint, the paint grade, the dark accent wall, the stairwell nobody wants to do, the house you are living in while it happens. HST on the bottom. No email address required.
Three painting quotes on the same house are $4,000 apart and all three painters are honest. One priced walls only. One priced walls and ceilings. One priced walls, ceilings, every baseboard, every casing and 22 doors, both sides. This calculator makes you say which one you want before you ask anyone, so the quotes that come back are for the same job. It also prices the prep, because on a repaint the prep is half the labour and the first thing a cheap quote leaves out.
Step-by-step
Interior Painting Cost Calculator (Ontario)
1
The rooms
| Room | Length (ft) | Width (ft) | Ceiling (ft) | Doors | Windows | Ceiling |
|---|
Measure each room at the floor. Doors come off at 20 sq ft each, windows at 15. Closets count as rooms if they are drywalled; hallways too. A 2,000 sq ft house has about 6,500 sq ft of wall and ceiling, not 2,000.
Set Ceiling to “No ceiling work” for rooms where only the walls get painted. Baseboard length is worked out from the room perimeter less the doors.
2
What is being painted
$2.25 a foot of baseboard, $45 an opening for casing, two coats, caulked. Trim and door pricing.
$110 a slab brushed and rolled, $140 sprayed off the hinges. Leave at 0 if the doors come prefinished.
3
The paint and the conditions
Scaffold or a plank over the stairs. The job every painter prices last and highest.
+$120 each. Dark colours take three coats and a tinted primer to cover.
Removing it is a different job: popcorn ceiling removal.
4
Where is the house?
Labour is most of a drywall or painting price, and labour costs more where parking costs more.
Used only to tell you whether the house is in our direct service area. Not stored.
Enter a postal code to see service coverage.
BuildersOntario.com
Your Painting Budget
Illustrative Ontario estimate
| Item | Estimate |
|---|
Estimated total with HST$0
Example only, using BuildersOntario budgeting rates checked October 2026 for professional painters supplying paint and materials: new-drywall primer or spot priming, two finish coats rolled and cut by hand, ceilings flat white, trim in a satin or semi-gloss trim enamel, caulked, nail holes filled, floors and fixtures protected, touch-ups after the walk-through. It does not include drywall repair beyond nail holes and hairline cracks, wallpaper removal, or anything outside. Your painter’s site look governs the contract.
Request a Real Quotation
Your room list and scope become a written specification a painter can price without a visit, so three painters price the same walls, ceilings, trim and doors. It goes straight to our inbox, and a copy comes back to you; reply to that copy with a photo of a typical room and of any wall that worries you.
What this calculator does, and what it will not do!
It prices painting the way a painter’s estimate sheet is laid out: walls by the square foot of wall, ceilings by the square foot of ceiling, baseboard by the running foot, casing by the opening, doors by the slab. Then it adds the things that change the labour: new drywall that needs a primer coat, a repaint that needs real prep, dark colours, a stairwell, and a house with a family in it. The paint is in the price at the grade you pick.
It does not know that the previous owner painted over wallpaper, that the ceiling has a water stain that will bleed through three coats of anything without a shellac primer, or that the “two coats” on the last job were one coat and a prayer. Those come out at the walk-through. How to hire a painter covers what to look at before anyone opens a can.
A rule of thumb: in Ontario in 2026, painting new drywall (primer and two coats) is $2.25 to $3.00 per square foot of wall and $1.65 to $2.15 per square foot of ceiling, before HST. Repainting a lived-in house is $2.50 to $3.75 a square foot of wall, with the prep deciding where in that range. A whole 2,000 sq ft house, walls, ceilings, trim and doors, is $13,000 to $19,000 new and $16,000 to $23,000 occupied.
How I price it
| Line | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New drywall walls | $2.50 per sq ft | PVA or high-build drywall primer plus two finish coats, mid-grade paint. The cost guide. |
| New drywall ceilings | $1.85 per sq ft | Primer and two coats of flat ceiling white. No cutting in to speak of, which is why it is cheaper. |
| Repaint, good walls | $2.75 per sq ft | Nail holes, a light sand, two coats. Same colour family. |
| Repaint, rough walls | +$0.60 per sq ft | Patches, cracks, sanding, spot priming. Half the time is prep. |
| Dark to light, or light to dark | +$0.40 per sq ft | Tinted primer and three coats. Reds and navies worst. |
| Baseboard | $2.25 per ft | Filled, caulked, two coats of trim enamel. Walls, ceilings and trim. |
| Casing | $45 per opening | Both sides of a door, or around a window. |
| Interior doors | $110 brushed, $140 sprayed | Both faces and edges. Sprayed looks like the factory; brushed looks like a good brush. |
| Paint grade | -$0.25 to +$0.35 per sq ft | Builder flat through premium washable. Sheen matters as much as brand. |
| Occupied house | +10% to 18% | Moving, covering, working around a family and a dog. |
| Stairwell, two-storey foyer | $450 to $900 | Scaffold over the stairs. The 17-ft wall is three hours of setup before a brush touches it. |
| Minimum job | $650 | One room, one colour, is still a day with setup and two trips. |
Where homeowners go wrong
- Comparing a walls-only quote to a whole-house quote. Ask every painter the same list: walls, ceilings, baseboard, casing, doors, closets. The comparison grid has the lines.
- “Paint and primer in one” on new drywall. It is a good paint, not a primer. New board and new compound take paint differently and the joints flash through without a real primer. Priming new drywall.
- Buying the expensive paint and the cheap labour. A $90 gallon rolled over unsanded patches by a fellow in a hurry looks worse than a $45 gallon applied properly. Prep and application are the job; the can is 15% of it.
- Semi-gloss on a Level 4 wall. Anything above eggshell shows every joint under a window. Either go Level 5 on that wall or stay flat. Why.
- No walk-through with a light before the last cheque. Holidays, drips, roller marks and thin cut lines are all fixable on the day and all an argument a week later.
Questions people ask
How much does it cost to paint the interior of a house in Ontario?
$13,000 to $19,000 for a new 2,000 sq ft house (walls, ceilings, trim and doors, primer and two coats), $16,000 to $23,000 to repaint the same house with a family living in it, before HST, in 2026. Walls only in a 1,200 sq ft bungalow is $4,000 to $5,500. The spread is prep and what is in the scope.
Do painters charge by the square foot or by the room?
Good ones measure walls and ceilings and price by the square foot, then add trim by the foot and doors by the slab. “Per room” pricing is a shortcut that overcharges small rooms and undercharges big ones, and it tells you nothing about what is included.
Is the paint included in a painting quote?
Usually, and it should say which product. A quote that says “paint extra” or names no product is leaving room to use the cheapest can on the shelf. Ask for the brand and line in writing.
How many coats should a painter put on?
Two finish coats over a primed or previously painted surface, three when covering dark colours or going to a deep colour. One coat is a touch-up, not a paint job, whatever the can says.
Need to know how many gallons, or price the drywall too?
The paint and primer calculator works out the gallons for a do-it-yourself job. The Complete Interior Finishing Calculator takes the same rooms through drywall, taping and painting as one number for a new house or a basement.
