How much paint baseboards and trim take
The length of the trim, times how wide it is painted, times the coats, over what a gallon covers. Behr works trim as its length times half a foot. The baseboard of a 12 by 12 foot room runs round the floor, 2 × (12 + 12) = 48 feet: 48 × 0.5 = 24 square feet, twice over, is 48 square feet, and at 350 square feet a gallon that is 0.14 gallons. Buy one quart — about 100 square feet's worth, by Sherwin-Williams' figure — and you will have some to spare.
The page takes the baseboard from the room's length and width, so the doors and windows count only for the walls. Door and window casings, crown molding or a chair rail are a rectangle each: type the length of the run as its width and the width you paint as its height. A run of casing 17 feet long and 3 inches wide is 17 × 0.25 = 4.25 square feet.
Trim by room
| Room | Baseboard | Two coats buys |
|---|---|---|
| 10 × 10 ft | 40 ft | 1 qt |
| 12 × 12 ft | 48 ft | 1 qt |
| 14 × 16 ft | 60 ft | 1 qt |
| Five 12 × 13 ft rooms | 250 ft | 1 gal |
Trim takes little paint, and that is the reason to work it out rather than buy a gallon by habit: a quart covers the baseboards of a large room twice, and a gallon those of a whole floor. Add a room for each room, or set the quantity of one room to the number of rooms of its size.
Half a foot, or your own width
Half a foot is Behr's allowance, and it is a box under Assumptions, so type the width you paint if you know it. Painting the walls in the same visit? Switch "What to paint" to walls and trim, and the trim paint comes on the shopping list beside the wall paint, bought in its own cans.
Prices are our own estimates, not a store's. We are not connected with any brand or store named here.