Real exterior painting prices from projects Ellwanger Painting completes every season in Bellingham and Whatcom County. Below you'll find cost per footprint square foot, home-size ranges, how siding type changes the number, what drives exterior pricing up on older Bellingham homes, and real local projects with actual numbers. Also see our interior painting prices.
Exterior pricing is based on your home's footprint square footage — the ground floor area — not total paintable surface area. Story height, prep needed, siding type, trim detail, and number of colors all move projects toward the higher end or above this range.
A two-story, 100-year-old home with detailed trim and 4 colors will be at the $9+ end.Most exterior paint failures come down to skipped prep. A home with heavy scraping, bare wood, dry rot, and caulk failure needs significantly more labor before any paint goes on. That's not padding — it's the difference between a job that holds 10 years and one that peels in 2.
Homes in poor condition will land at the upper end or above the $6–$9 range.Use these ranges as a starting point. Final pricing always depends on an onsite inspection, actual surface condition, and the written scope of work in your estimate.
| Scope | Typical home size | Typical range | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exterior repaint Small house |
~800–1,050 sq ft footprint | $5,000–$7,000 | Pressure wash, full prep, 2 coats on siding & trim. |
| Exterior repaint Medium house |
~1,100–1,500 sq ft footprint | $7,000–$12,000 | More elevation, more trim, more prep time. |
| Exterior repaint Large house |
~1,500–2,500 sq ft footprint | $12,000–$22,000 | Two-story, complex elevations, extensive prep. |
| Exterior per sq ft Whole exterior system |
Priced by footprint sq ft | $6–$9+ / footprint sq ft | Masking, spraying two coats of topcoat, hand brushing and rolling trim. |
| Cedar siding Staining & finishing |
By linear or sq ft | Included in exterior range | Oil-based or linseed oil stains. Cedar requires specific primer — bare cedar cannot go straight to topcoat. |
The single biggest reason two exterior bids differ by thousands is scope. Here's exactly what our quoted exterior price covers, and what gets written up as a separate line so you can see it.
Nothing here gets added after the job starts. If we find more rot behind the paint than was visible at the walkthrough — common on older Bellingham homes — we document it, show you, and agree on it before we proceed.
Siding doesn't change the per-square-foot formula so much as it changes how much prep the job needs — which is what actually moves you within the $6–$9+ range.
| Siding | Where it lands in the range | Why — the prep it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Fiber cement Hardie board |
Lower to middle | Factory-primed and dimensionally stable. Usually a wash, caulk at joints, spot prime, and two coats. |
| Wood lap / cedar Existing paint sound |
Middle | More caulking and hand work at the laps, more cut-in at trim. Scraping is spot work, not whole-house. |
| Cedar Bare or heavily peeling |
Upper end or above | Oil or alkyd primer is required to stop tannin bleed. Wood that has taken on moisture under failing paint has to dry down before it will hold a finish — that's scraping time, wash time, and dry time. |
| T1-11 Plywood panel siding |
Middle to upper | Grooves drink coating and panel bottoms and edges wick water. Both need attention or the failure starts there. |
| Stucco Painting + crack repair |
Repair quoted separately | Painting over cracked stucco does nothing — the crack telegraphs back through in a season. Cracks get cut out and patched, then an elastomeric coating bridges the movement. |
Not sure what you have? Send a photo with your estimate request and we'll tell you.
These aren't national averages — they're real projects from homes we've painted in Bellingham, with the actual products and prep used. Each one links to its full photo set in the Bellingham painting portfolio. Use them as ballpark ranges, then request a walkthrough for an exact quote.
Full exterior repaint: pressure wash, scrape and sand failing paint, spot-prime bare wood, elastomeric caulk at windows and doors, then a two-coat Aura Exterior system — Low Lustre on the body in Van Deusen Blue, soft gloss on the trim. This project landed in the $12,000 range. A large rear deck added masking time and the two-story elevation added staging time; premium coatings and access difficulty were both on the high end.
This is what pushes a repaint to the top of the range. Cedar lap left under failing paint had absorbed moisture season after season, and wet wood pushes a new coating back off as it dries. Scrape to a sound edge, wash with bleach and soap, hand-scrub the siding, let the wood come back down to a paintable moisture level, then lock it down with oil primer before two finish coats of Aura Exterior. Prep, not paint, is where the hours went.
Older Roosevelt, Columbia, and York homes usually need lead-safe prep before any new paint goes on: containment, wet scraping, HEPA cleanup, and legal disposal. That work is why lead homes typically run $9–$12+ per footprint sq ft instead of $6–$9. Here it was scrape, oil-prime the entire house, oil-based caulk at every seam, spray-and-backroll the body, then hand-brush and roll the trim and accents.
Cracked stucco is the most common thing we find on older Bellingham homes near the water, and painting over it does nothing — the crack telegraphs straight back through the new coating within a season. Every crack on this upper elevation was cut out and patched, then coated with an elastomeric system flexible enough to bridge hairline movement. Repair scope like this is quoted separately from the paint, which is why a stucco home's total can sit well above a straight repaint.
We had Ellwanger Painting do a full exterior paint on our 10 year old house in Bellingham that was starting to fade. Justin and the team were professional, took their time with the pre-cleaning and prep work, used quality paint, and made the house look like new again. I would not hesitate to use them again.
Ellwanger Painting painted the interior of my house bringing it to life! It looked so good I decided to have him paint the exterior. Again, as professional as it gets. If you want your home to look its best in Bellingham trust Justin at Ellwanger Painting.
Read all Ellwanger Painting reviews or see them on Google.
Exterior painting in Bellingham typically costs $6–$9 per footprint square foot. A small home (800–1,050 sq ft footprint) runs $5,000–$7,000. A medium home (1,100–1,500 sq ft) runs $7,000–$12,000. A large home (1,500–2,500 sq ft) runs $12,000–$22,000. Homes with heavy prep needs, dry rot, detailed trim, or multiple stories land at the higher end or above this range.
Footprint square footage is the ground floor area of your home — not total paintable surface area. Exterior painting is priced by footprint sq ft because it correlates with overall project scope. A 1,200 sq ft footprint home has roughly 1,200 sq ft of floor area but significantly more actual surface area once you add a second story, trim, fascia, and soffits.
Most of an exterior repaint is labor-intensive prep, not paint. Scraping failing paint, sanding transitions, caulking siding joints, spot-priming bare wood, and addressing dry rot all happen before a topcoat goes on. Materials add up too: the premium exterior coatings we use — Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior and Sherwin-Williams Duration — run $75–$95 per gallon, and a typical Bellingham repaint takes 10–20 gallons depending on home size, siding, and condition. That's $750–$1,900 in paint before an hour of labor is billed. Add staging for two-story homes and EPA RRP requirements on pre-1978 homes, and the $6–$9+ per footprint square foot range reflects what it takes to produce a finish that lasts 8–12 years in this climate. Cheaper bids often spec contractor-grade paint at $30–$45 per gallon — it covers, but it doesn't hold up to Bellingham's moisture and UV the way a premium coating does.
Older homes require significantly more prep — more scraping of failing paint, more caulking at aged siding joints, more spot-priming of bare wood, and often dry rot repair before any topcoat goes on. Prep is where the durability of the job is determined, and older homes need far more of it than newer construction.
Yes. Smaller homes typically land at the higher end of the per square foot range because fixed costs — setup, staging, pressure washing, masking — get spread across less paintable surface. A 900 sq ft home costs more per square foot to paint than a 2,000 sq ft home even if the day rate and materials are identical. Complexity works the same way: a small home with detailed Craftsman trim, multiple colors, and a second story can cost more per square foot than a larger plain ranch.
Yes, mostly through prep. Fiber cement in sound condition is the least prep-intensive and sits at the lower end of the range. Wood lap and cedar with sound existing paint sit mid-range because of the caulking and hand work at the laps. Bare or heavily peeling cedar sits at the top or above the range — it needs an oil or alkyd primer to stop tannin bleed, and wood that has taken on moisture has to dry down before it will hold a finish. T1-11 plywood needs extra attention in the grooves and at panel bottoms. Stucco is its own scope: cracks get cut out and patched before any coating goes on. See the full siding table above.
Yes. Each additional color adds masking time, cut-in time, and in some cases an additional coat where colors meet. A single-color exterior is the most straightforward to price. Two colors — body and trim — is standard and factored into most estimates. Three or four colors, common on detailed Victorian and Craftsman homes in Bellingham's older neighborhoods, adds $500–$1,500+ depending on the complexity of the trim profiles and how many transition lines need to be cut clean.
Dry rot repair is priced separately from the painting scope and depends entirely on how much damaged wood we find. Minor rot — soft spots treated with consolidant and filled — adds a few hundred dollars. Board replacement on heavily damaged sections runs $200–$600 per section depending on size, profile, and access. On older Bellingham homes it's common to find more rot once we start scraping than was visible during the walkthrough. We document everything we find and discuss it with you before proceeding — no surprise charges after the job starts.
Lead paint adds cost. Pre-1978 homes require EPA RRP certified containment, wet scraping, HEPA cleanup, and legal disposal — more time and more materials than a standard repaint. A lead home typically falls in the $9–$12+ per footprint square foot range depending on size and condition, with two-story homes at the higher end. That cost is built into your estimate upfront — not added after the job starts.
Late spring through early fall is the reliable window here. Most exterior acrylics need air and surface temperatures above roughly 50°F to cure properly, and surfaces have to be genuinely dry — which in the Pacific Northwest means watching dew point and wood moisture as closely as the forecast, not just whether it's raining right now. Shoulder-season work is possible with low-temperature-rated products and careful scheduling around dry stretches. Deep winter is not a good time to put a coating on a Bellingham exterior. Summer books up, so a home you want painted in July is usually on the schedule well before then.
Included: pressure washing, scraping and sanding failing paint, caulking failed joints, spot-priming bare wood and repairs, masking and protection, two coats of topcoat on siding, hand-brushed and rolled trim, daily cleanup, and a final walkthrough. Priced separately and written into the estimate: dry rot and carpentry repair, stucco crack repair, decks and fences, and full-house priming where the existing coating has failed everywhere. See the full breakdown above.
Usually because of what's included. A low bid that omits scraping, skips primer, and specifies one coat instead of two will fail in two to three years in Bellingham's climate — and you'll pay to do it again. Before comparing numbers, compare scopes: ask every contractor what prep is included, whether bare wood gets primed, how many coats are specified, and what their warranty covers. A detailed written scope is the only way to compare bids on equal footing. Our pricing transparency guide walks through this line by line.
A properly prepped and coated exterior repaint in Bellingham should last 8–12 years. Prep is the key variable — a job with thorough scraping, proper priming, and quality topcoats will outlast a quick-coat job by many years in the Pacific Northwest climate.
Yes. Exterior painting projects Ellwanger Painting completes in Bellingham are backed by a 5-year workmanship warranty. If the coating fails because of our prep or application — peeling, flaking, or adhesion failure not caused by moisture intrusion or structural movement — we come back and make it right. Any exceptions are spelled out in your written estimate.
