How Often Should You Paint Your House Interior? (A Room-By-Room Guide)

Your home can be immediately transformed by painting your house interior and exterior. But, how often should you paint the inside of your house? Use this room-by-room guide to see if it’s time to re-paint.

Most of the time, you only think about painting your house interior when you’re looking to change the color. However, if you want your home to look its best, you’ve got to be repainting the walls on a regular schedule.

How often should you be painting your home to make it look its best?

 

When To Repaint Your Walls

How often you need to repaint your house interior walls depends on the room, how its used, and how often its used. The room is the biggest factor, so let’s break it down by room:

– Living Room:

This room is used quite often, so how often you need to paint will depend on the style of paint you use. It’s usually best to pick up a durable style paint for your living room.

If you use one that can take a good amount of wear and tear, then you’ll need to paint it around every 5 – 7 years. If you’re using a less robust paint, then you may find that it needs to be a little more frequent than this.

– Dining Room:

Again, this room depends on how often you use it and how durable the paint is. You’re looking at 5 – 7 years again for this room, dependent on paint style and usage.

If your dining room is only used for special occasions, then you may be able to leave it longer between paintings.

– Kitchen:

Your kitchen is a room that’s in constant use. Whether you’re in there cooking meals for everyone, or your whole family comes in to gather together at the end of the day, there’s always going to be someone in there.

Kitchens invite damage to the paint too. There will be food splatters on the wall, or messy fingerprints if you have small children. Whatever happens, you’ll see that the paint needs updating more often.

It’s recommended that you paint your kitchen around every 3 – 4 years. It’s also recommended that you use a durable paint, such as a gloss or a satin paint to ensure that it lasts for longer.

– Bathroom:

The bathroom is another room that takes a lot of use, and it shows up in the paint. If you don’t use a good quality paint, you may even see it start to peel away thanks to the moisture in the air.

You can make it last longer, if you take good care of it. That means ventilating the room properly, and using specific bathroom paints to help it stick properly.

These are very common though, and you’re bound to find a bathroom paint in the color you want. Like kitchen paints, you’ll be looking at repainting every 3 – 4 years.

– Bedrooms:

How often you’ll repaint your bedroom will depend on who the bedroom belongs too. Adult bedrooms often don’t need to be repainted until you want to change the color. They’re used much less often than children’s bedrooms, so you won’t have to worry about updating the paint too often.

Children, on the other hand, will need their bedrooms repainted every 2 – 3 years. They’re using their rooms for both sleep and play, and take a lot of abuse as a result. When professional painters paint children’s rooms, they recommend an eggshell or satin sheen. This makes it easier for the walls to be scrubbed down, if needs be.

– Hallways:

Finally, there’s the interior house hallways that need to be painted. You won’t give them a second thought most of the time, but you’ll find that they get the most scuffs and dings in your home.

It’s not surprising when you realize they’re the most walked through areas of your home. As this is the case, you’ll need to repaint them every 2 – 3 years.

You will need to repair any dents or scuffs prior to painting, to ensure you get the best result.

 

 

Painting Your House Interior Trim And Baseboards

When painting a room, you don’t want to neglect the trims. They often take a lot of damage from use over time.

• For example, windowsills take a lot of chips and nicks as they’re used for storage, or nicked when the homeowner is opening or closing the windows.
• Baseboards also see a lot of damage as they get banged by doors and kicked by accident.

Because of this, you need to be repainting the trim work in a room every 2 – 4 years. This will depend on what the room is used for.

For example, the baseboards in your living room won’t need as much repainting as the boards in your children’s bedrooms. If they’re starting to look a little worn and neglected, then you need to touch them up.

 

Painting Your Interior Ceilings

Now there’s the subject of your painting your interior ceilings. There will be times when you need to repaint them, for example when you have a water leak and need to cover the stains on the ceiling after you’ve mended the leak. How often do you need to paint them when you’re just touching them up, though?

If you’ve been taking good care of your home, then your ceiling paint will last for up to 10 years. Depending on the room you’re looking at painting, you can paint the ceiling every other time you paint your house interior walls. You will need to do it more often if you’re covering up marks or stains.

It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes when you cover up yellowing or stained ceiling paint.

So, how often do you need to paint your interior walls? It really depends on the room you’re looking at, how often its used, and the style of paint you’re using to paint it with.

 

 

Conclusion

Using a more durable paint is always a good idea as it’s often much easier to clean a wall, rather than repaint it. Kid’s rooms need painting the most often, and living and dining rooms often last the longest between paintings.

If it’s time to repaint your house interior, do your research and pick a painting company that will take good care of your home to get the best results.