Paint Quantity Calculator

Who this is for

Know how much paint to buy. List each wall, ceiling and area of woodwork, take off doors and windows, and enter the coverage from your tin and the number of coats; the sheet works out litres per surface and tins to buy for the whole job.

Homeowners decorating one room or a whole floor, and anyone who has bought three tins too many or run out halfway down the last wall.

What this helps you track

• The gross and net area of every wall, ceiling and area of woodwork
• Litres needed for each surface at your coats and coverage
• Tins to buy for the whole job at your tin size
• What will be left in the last tin

How to use it

1. Write the project, and the paint product and colour this sheet is for; use one sheet per paint.
2. Copy the coverage per litre from the tin or the product page, and enter the number of coats you plan and the tin size in litres.
3. For each surface, write the room, pick the surface and measure its length and height (or width, for a ceiling) in metres.
4. Add up the doors, windows and anything else you will not paint on that surface and enter it as openings in square metres.
5. Areas, litres and the summary are worked out in the browser and the workbook; on paper, multiply, take off the openings, multiply by coats and divide by coverage.
6. Buy the tins shown, and write the batch number on the notes so a top-up tin can be matched.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Where does the coverage figure come from?

From the tin. Manufacturers print a coverage in square metres per litre, often as a range. The sheet supplies none; use the figure for your product, and the lower end of a range if the surface is rough or porous.

How many coats should I put in?

That depends on the colour change, the surface and the paint. The sheet uses whatever number you enter for every surface on it, so use a separate sheet if the ceiling and walls need different numbers of coats.

Can I do several rooms on one sheet?

Yes, as long as they use the same paint. Write the room on each row and the litres are added up across all of them, so the tins figure covers the whole job.

Why does woodwork need its own sheet?

Woodwork is usually a different paint with a different coverage, so give it its own sheet with that product's figures. The surface list includes woodwork so the same layout works for it.