Paint Calculator — How Much Paint Do I Need?

Build your room on the left, watch it take shape beside it, and we’ll work out the litres, the cheapest tins to buy and what you’ll have left over.

Quick start

Fill a whole room in one go

Enter the size of a rectangular room and we’ll create the four walls for you. Edit, rename, duplicate or delete any of them afterwards.

Walls

Length (m)

Width (m)

Height (m)

Include the ceiling Adds a ceiling the same size as the room, in Victory White. Include a window and a door Adds one of each so they come off the wall area. They are not painted until you say so.

Walls

Ceilings

Trim & woodwork

Nothing here until you add something. Each length picks its own walls, its own colour and its own paint.

Doors & windows

Not included until you add something here. Doors and windows in your walls are already taken off the wall area either way.

Accents & anything else

Alcoves, chimney breasts, a painted radiator cover, a front door, built-in shelving — anything with its own colour or its own finish.

Options

Wastage and rounding

Add 10% for wastage Covers what stays in the tray and on the roller, touch-ups and the odd mis-measured wall. We’d leave this on. Prefer the least leftover paint instead of the lowest price Off by default: we show you the cheapest combination of tins that covers the job.

Your room

What you need

Add a wall to get started

Our paint calculator, in plain English

Use the paint calculator above to work out how much paint you need for a room. Put in the size of your walls and ceiling, add doors, windows, skirting boards, architrave and rails, pick your colours, and we’ll tell you the litres, the cheapest combination of tins to buy and how much you’ll have left over. You can add it all to your basket in one go.

What it works out

Paint coverage and litres — at 14m² per litre, the coverage quoted on our tins.
Wall paint, ceiling paint and emulsion quantities — per room, with doors and windows taken off the wall area.
Woodwork — skirting board, architrave, picture and dado rails, doors and window frames in eggshell.
Primer and undercoat — for bare wood, metal and previously glossed woodwork, and Primer & Sealer for new plaster.
Two coats and 10% wastage by default, both of which you can change.

How many litres of paint do I need?

As a rough guide, one litre of our emulsion covers about 14 square metres per coat, so a standard 4m × 3m room with a 2.4m ceiling takes roughly 5 litres for two coats on the walls. The calculator does the sums properly for your actual room, including the ceiling, the doorways and any wall you’ve painted a different colour.

Not sure of the colour yet? Order a hand-painted A5 paint sample first, or use our colour matching service. If you’d rather talk it through, ring us on 01258 841310.