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Exterior paint costs in Des Moines

Here’s the ballpark for common exterior paint jobs around Des Moines, IA. Want one for your own project? A photo is all it takes.

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Des Moines

What it usually costs

  • Repaint the whole house$2.27 – $4.11 per sq ft
  • Paint just the trim and shutters$1.38 – $5.50 per sq ft

A ballpark, not a quote. Some of these are national averages adjusted for Des Moines prices, so your job could land outside them.

Exterior paint in Des Moines

Des Moines is really two housing markets. Inside the city, two homes in three predate 1980 and roughly one in four is more than 85 years old. Across the whole metro, more than a third date from 2000 or after. Those two ends make very different paint jobs.

An older city house usually means wood siding or trim with many coats, and some peeling down to bare wood. On a pre-1978 house, a hired painter must be certified in lead-safe work before scraping that paint. Scraping, containment and cleanup are where much of the time goes.

Humid Iowa summers bring a second issue: mildew. A North Central extension bulletin calls mildew probably the most common cause of discolored house paint. It's most common on walls behind trees or shrubs, where air can't move, and under eaves and porch ceilings where dew forms. The bulletin says acrylic latex is the most mildew-resistant of the water-based paints, and a paint with mildewcide helps keep it from coming back. Trimming shrubs back from the wall helps too.

Sources

Questions homeowners ask

How accurate is a photo estimate?
It’s a ballpark, not a quote. One photo rarely shows the whole house, so a local painter who walks the property will always be more precise. Use our number as the range to expect before you start calling around.
What changes the price of an exterior paint job?
Square footage is the biggest factor, then how much prep the old paint needs — bare wood or peeling paint takes far more work than a clean recoat. Trim, multiple stories, and a color change add to it too.
Do I need to measure my house?
A rough guess at the wall square footage helps a lot, but if you don’t know it, just skip the question and we’ll estimate from your photo.
Is this really free?
Yes. No signup, no credit card, no spam. We only make money if you choose to connect with a local pro — and that’s up to you.
What photo works best?
A shot of the front of the house, plus any sides showing wear like peeling or bare spots, gives us the best read.

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Nearby

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