Save money on Renos – Do your own painting

When the upstairs tenant left in rental A we decided it was a good time to do renos.  Originally we were going to do the renos on our own.  However, when our renovator quoted the price for the bathroom and kitchen, we decided to let him do it.  We thought we give the place a new coat of paint ourselves though.

Painting is the best way to instantly refresh a place.  We find the place cleaner and brighter.  It even smelt better.  We thought we figure out how much painting ourselves saved us.  Our renovator said he would have charged use $800.  We spent about $50 on paint (cheap because we went to the miss tint section and grabbed what was available in the quantity we want) and about $100 on paint supplies.  Savings $650.

It’s not that hard to do even for a rookie like me.  It took two of us about 9 hours to paint approximate 800 sqft.  We picked an off white color so it was more forgiving if we made mistakes, and painted two coats.  I was a little worried when the first coat was drying because it looked very patchy.   But once it dried it looked much better and when the second coat dried it looked great.
Actually, the same guy is renovating our parent’s place so we already talked to him about doing the painting.  He agreed that he’d do the sanding and prep and we do the painting for a $1000 discount.