What a paint job costs in Nellore, and how quantity is worked out

Our painting rates are set by job, not by the hour. A single room — all walls, quality finish — is ₹3,499. A 1BHK interior covering walls and ceiling in primer plus two coats is ₹8,999. A full 2BHK interior repaint is ₹13,999. Terrace or bathroom waterproofing as an anti-seep treatment is ₹2,499, and wood polish for furniture or a door in lacquer or PU is ₹1,499.

Those figures are the labour, preparation and workmanship. Paint, primer, putty and consumables are separate, charged at MRP, and shown to you before anything is opened. That split is the honest way to price painting, because the same room can take twice the material depending on the shade change and the state of the walls.

The rate card

Job	Price
Single room, all walls, quality finish	₹3,499
1BHK interior, walls + ceiling, primer + 2 coats	₹8,999
2BHK full interior repaint	₹13,999
Waterproofing — terrace or bathroom, anti-seep	₹2,499
Wood polish — furniture or door, lacquer/PU	₹1,499

How painters work out the quantity

Paint is estimated by area, not by room count, and the arithmetic is simple enough to check yourself.

For each room, add up the wall lengths to get the perimeter, multiply by the wall height, and you have the wall area. Deduct roughly the area of large windows and doors. For the ceiling, multiply length by breadth.

Then two multipliers apply:

• Coats. Primer plus two topcoats means the wall area is covered three times. A big shade change — dark to light especially — can need an extra topcoat, and that is an extra pass over the whole area.
• Spread rate. Every paint covers a stated area per litre on a smooth, primed surface. Rough plaster, absorbent new plaster and textured walls take more, sometimes considerably more.

A worked example: a 12 by 12 foot room with 10 foot walls has a perimeter of 48 feet, so about 480 square feet of wall, less roughly 40 for a door and a window — call it 440. Add 144 for the ceiling. That is under 600 square feet of surface, covered three times.

This is worth doing before you buy material, because it tells you immediately whether a suggested quantity is sensible or whether a tin is being stretched.

What pushes a price above the standard rate

• Old distemper that has to be scraped and washed off before anything can bond.
• Damp or seepage that needs the source repaired and the wall dried before painting.
• Hollow or damaged plaster that has to be cut out and made good.
• Full puttying on new or patchy walls, or under a sheen finish.
• A dark-to-light shade change, which usually means an extra coat.
• High ceilings, stairwells and exterior walls above the ground floor, which need staging.
• Textured or designer finishes, which are a different job from flat emulsion.

None of these should be a surprise on day two. They are all visible at a survey, which is why it is worth having someone look at the walls before you commit.

Getting a quote you can compare

When you collect quotes, make everyone answer the same four questions:

1. How many coats, and is a primer included by name?
2. What preparation is in the price — washing, scraping, crack filling, putty?
3. Which product and grade, and is the material at MRP with the tins shown?
4. What is excluded — plaster repair, damp treatment, doors and grilles?

Two quotes that differ by thousands usually differ on question one or two. Once all four are answered the same way, the comparison is real.

Where to spend and where to save

If the budget is tight, put the money into preparation and into the surfaces that get touched — passages, the children's room, kitchen walls, and the area around switchboards. Save on the guest bedroom and the store room, where a standard emulsion will look fine for years because nothing happens to it.

The one place not to save is on anything to do with water. Painting a room with an untreated damp patch means paying for that room twice, and the second time the plaster usually needs work as well.