Exterior house painting cost in Portland

Most Portland-area exterior repaints cost somewhere between $2,498 and $5,167 for the whole house with paint in the price, and the typical one comes in near $3,801 (market data, November 2026) . A second storey, lots of flaking paint, soft boards and extra colours all pull the number up. Trim or a single door on its own costs far less, and a pre-1978 house changes who is allowed to do the work. If you'd rather skip the maths, our exterior painting page shows what we paint and how to book.

How much does it cost to paint the outside of a house around Portland?

These figures are local. The whole-house row is market data; the three smaller ones are Portland-area estimates, worked out as hours times what painters here charge per hour. Look at the last column, because some include paint and some are labour only.

That's the market range, not my quote . Everything else we charge for is collected on our pricing page.

National cost pages usually print higher totals. They average in bigger two-storey homes and pricier metro areas, so treat them as a different market. A single-storey ranch, the kind you find all over Beaverton and Cedar Hills, tends to sit in the lower half of the first row.

How much does it cost to paint a 1,500 or 2,000 sq ft house exterior?

I can't give you an honest per-square-foot figure, and the market row isn't built that way either. It's priced per house. Floor area is a weak guide, because a painter measures wall area, height and the running length of trim. Take two homes with the same 1,500 square feet, one a ranch and one with an upstairs: the taller one means longer ladders, more wall and slower going.

So two storeys push you toward the upper end, closer to $5,167 than $2,498 . A good share of Bethany, built in the 1990s and 2000s, is two storeys. On West Slope, where lots run down a hill, the low side of a house can stand a full floor taller than the street side. That's an access cost, not a size cost.

Want a rough range without a visit? Send a picture of every wall, the number of storeys, the year built and close-ups of anything peeling. That covers most of what I'd look at in person.

Labour, paint or prep: which one is the bill made of?

Mostly hours. On the sheet behind the market row, paint and supplies come to roughly 15 % of a whole-house bill, so most of the money pays for time on ladders and the prep before any colour goes on . That's also why a better grade of paint barely moves the total. It's a small line, and it usually holds up longer.

On a weathered house the prep can take more hours than the painting. The items that add up:

• washing the walls and waiting for them to dry out;
• scraping loose paint and feathering the edges;
• spot priming bare wood;
• filling open joints;
• covering windows, walkways and plants.

Shade is a local factor here. North walls and walls under big firs, common in Cedar Mill, stay damp and grow mildew. They get washed like the rest, then they need extra drying days, and those days show up in the labour line.

How do painters charge: by the hour, the day or the job?

A whole house is usually bid as one fixed price. You get a total for the agreed scope, and the painter carries the risk if it runs long. Smaller jobs are often priced from estimated hours, which is how the trim, garage door and front door figures were worked out.

People also ask what a fair hourly or daily rate looks like. I won't judge a number without knowing the job. What an hour of handyman time runs west of downtown, and how those hours become an invoice, is covered in handyman cost per hour .

One thing in your favour: our whole service area is a short drive across, roughly 25 minutes end to end at worst. A small trim job doesn't need to carry a long trip in its price.

What makes an exterior paint job cost more?

The same handful of things show up on almost every quote:

• Height and access. Two storeys, steep yards and hillside lots need taller ladders and more setup time.
• Siding type and condition. Cedar or other wood lap, T1-11 plywood, hardboard lap and fiber-cement boards each prep differently .
• Loose paint and failed caulk. The more that has let go, the more hours of scraping and filling.
• Colour count. Body, trim and an accent door means three cut-in passes instead of one.
• Masking. Windows, plantings and walkways all get covered. We protect shrubs but leave pruning to a landscaper.
• Repairs first. Soft wood gets fixed before paint, priced on its own (next section).

How often you'll repaint depends on exposure. Sunny south and west walls fade and chalk first, and shaded walls fight damp instead .

The season matters too. Rainy months don't make the job cheaper. They make the schedule tighter, because siding has to be dry before paint goes on .

Moss on a shaded wall gets washed off, nothing more; chemical moss killers aren't part of our work. The full list of turned-down jobs lives on what we don't do.

What does rotted siding or trim add to the bill?

Paint over soft wood doesn't hold, so rot gets fixed first and billed as its own line. Local market data (November 2026) for that repair, materials included, looks like this. How we handle it is on the wood rot and siding repair page.

Each is priced per job.

Re-sealing open gaps around trim and pipes is a separate, smaller line, estimated locally at $300 up to $1,500 for the labour.

The catch is that nobody sees the full extent until the old paint comes off. A fair quote handles that with an allowance or a per-board price, written down before work starts . With T1-11 and hardboard, look closely at the lowest edge. Rain wicks up into it and it swells, and paint alone won't seal a swollen edge .

Can you paint just the trim, one wall or the garage door?

Yes, and this is where a handyman makes more sense than a painting company, which usually wants to quote the whole house. The trim, garage door and front door figures from the first table apply here. For a seller who wants the street view tidied (front door, house numbers, a light), a curb-appeal refresh is estimated locally at $600 to $3,500, around $1,500 typical, labour only.

One wall is trickier than it sounds. Fresh paint next to weathered paint of the same colour won't match, so the patch has to run to a corner or another natural break . On garage doors our part is the paint. Springs, openers and dented panels go to a garage door specialist.

A 1990s or 2000s house, which describes much of Bethany, has now had 25 to 30 years of weather. Many are on their first or second repaint, and the trim and garage door often wear out before the body .

Does a house built before 1978 cost more to paint in Oregon?

Usually, and it also limits who may bid. Oregon treats every home from before 1978 as having lead paint until a test says it doesn't. Federal rules leave out housing a certified inspector or risk assessor has declared lead-free.

The lead-safe steps add time and material, so expect a quote for an older house to list them as separate lines. Disturbing lead paint is outside our work, so on a pre-1978 house we won't scrape or sand the outside .

Not sure of the year? The purchase papers or the county property record will say. Cedar Hills, Cedar Mill and the older parts of Beaverton were mostly built from the 1950s through the 1970s, so many houses on this side of town predate the cutoff. Bethany's mostly don't.

What should an exterior painting quote spell out?

A whole-house repaint here always goes past $2,000; even the bottom of the market range is $2,498. Oregon requires a written contract for that, along with three notices under state guidance. If a small job grows past $2,000, you're owed the contract within five days. What it must contain is laid out in Oregon contractor contract requirements.

When you compare two painters' bids, check that each one names:

• the surfaces: body, trim, soffits, doors, gutters or not;
• how the walls get washed;
• how loose paint is handled and where bare wood gets primer;
• how many topcoats and which paint;
• how rot is priced, allowance or per board;
• cleanup, the start window, and what happens on a wet day.

Painting is finish work, and Oregon's building codes division lists it as not needing a building permit, so a painting quote shouldn't carry a permit fee. If you have an HOA, read its colour rules before picking a palette. And since rain delays are normal here, the quote that says what happens when the weather turns is the more useful one.