Drywall Finishing & Repair
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Painting costs in Maryland
What exterior painting costs in Maryland
Exterior paint fails from the prep down, not from the paint up. Here is what a repaint costs in Maryland, broken into the parts you can buy separately, and where the money goes that nobody can see once it is dry.
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Quick answer
How much does painting cost in Maryland?
Painting the outside of a house in Maryland typically costs $4,000 to $12,000. Trim, fascia and soffit on their own run $1,400 to $3,800, and a wash and prep without paint is $450 to $1,200. A two-storey house carries a 10 to 20 percent premium over a single storey, and a house built before 1978 carries 20 to 40 percent over standard for lead-safe practices.
The numbers
Maryland pricing, broken down.
Almost no contractor site in this market publishes a number, which is exactly why the question has so much search demand and so little honest supply. These are the ranges we price to in Maryland, with the reason each one is a range and not a price.
Typical in Maryland
Whole-house exterior repaint
$4,000 – $12,000
Whole-house exterior
$4,000 – $12,000
The spread is mostly prep and storeys, not paint. A tight single-storey rancher with sound siding sits near the bottom; a two-storey colonial with failing caulk, bare wood and three colours sits near the top.
Wash and prep only
$450 – $1,200
Soft wash, scrape, caulk and spot prime with no finish coat. Worth buying on its own only when you are selling, or when you want the house sound now and painted next season.
Trim, fascia and soffit only
$1,400 – $3,800
The parts that fail first, because they take the weather and the sun. On brick and stone houses this is often the whole job, which is why it is priced on its own.
Shutters and front door
$300 – $800
Priced as a unit because they are the two things people actually look at. Taking shutters off and spraying them flat costs more and looks better than brushing them in place.
Bare wood repair and spot priming
$55 – $110 per hour
Hourly on purpose. Nobody can count rotten trim from the kerb, and a fixed price for unknown repairs is either padded or it is a change order waiting to happen.
Two-storey premium over single storey
+10% – 20%
Ladders, staging and the time spent moving them. It is a labour premium, not a materials one, which is why it reads as a percentage rather than a dollar figure.
Exterior repaint, lead-safe practices
+20% – 40% over standard
Applies to houses built before 1978 where painted surfaces are disturbed. Ground containment, controlled scraping and specialist cleanup are the cost, and they are not optional under the EPA rule.
Testing of suspect painted surfaces
$250 – $600
Cheaper than assuming either way. A negative result removes the surcharge above; a positive result tells both of us what the job actually is before anyone quotes it.
Third coat, or a colour change from dark to light
+$450 – $1,400
Two coats cover a like-for-like repaint. Going from a dark body colour to a pale one, or covering bare primer across a whole elevation, needs a third and we price it rather than hope.
Ranges, not quotes. Published 2026 and reviewed against work we are actually pricing in Maryland. What your job costs comes from a walkthrough — access, condition, height and finish level move a price more than square footage does. Estimates are free and in writing.
Why the cheap exterior quote is cheap
An exterior repaint has one expensive half and one cheap half. The cheap half is the paint. Materials on a whole-house exterior are usually a few hundred to a thousand dollars of the total. Everything else is hours, and almost all of those hours are prep.
So when one quote is thousands under another, the paint is rarely the reason. The reason is that somebody is washing instead of scraping, skipping the caulk, priming nothing, and putting one coat where two belong. All of that looks identical on the day it is finished, and visibly different in the third spring.
The way to compare quotes honestly is to read the prep, not the price. Ask what gets scraped, what gets caulked, what gets primed and how many coats go on. A contractor who will put that in writing has told you what the money buys, and a contractor who will not has told you something else.
What the pre-1978 surcharge is actually paying for
If the house was built before 1978, the paint underneath may contain lead, and disturbing it is regulated. That is not a sales technique and it is not negotiable — the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting rule governs how the work is done, and the EPA is the authority on what counts as compliance.
In practice the surcharge pays for ground containment under the work area, controlled scraping rather than dry sanding, and a specific cleanup and verification at the end of each day. On an exterior that is 20 to 40 percent over a standard repaint, which is real money and buys something real.
Testing first is usually the cheaper route. A test at $250 to $600 either removes the surcharge or confirms it, and it means the quote you are comparing is based on the house rather than on an assumption about its age. Where a result comes back positive, we say so in writing before anyone buys paint.
Before you sign anything
What a real written quote should itemise
Ask every contractor for these in writing. Quotes only compare once they do — and Maryland law requires home improvement work over $500 to be under a written contract anyway.
- What gets washed, what gets scraped and what gets caulked, written out rather than implied
- Number of finish coats, and whether a primer coat is included or extra
- The paint product and sheen by name, body and trim separately
- How bare wood and rotten trim are handled, with the hourly rate stated
- The storey or access premium as its own percentage, not folded into the total
- For a pre-1978 house, whether testing was done, and the lead-safe surcharge if it applies
- How many colours the price covers, and what a fourth cut line would add
Want the number for your house?
Call and describe the job. You’ll get a straight answer on whether it’s something we do and roughly what it runs, before anyone books a visit.
(301) 524-1729
Priced by us, not a calculator
Interior & Exterior Painting
What moves the number
Why two quotes on the same job land far apart.
Usually not because one contractor is expensive. Usually because they are pricing different work. These are the variables that actually move it.
01
How much prep the house actually needs
Prep is the whole job. Washing, scraping, caulking and priming is where the hours go, and a quote that is low is almost always low here rather than on the paint. Two houses the same size can be thousands apart because one has sound caulk and one does not.
02
Storeys, and how you reach them
Height costs labour. A gable end over a deck, a dormer over a conservatory, or a run with no ground to stand a ladder on all add setup time. That is the premium line, and it is honest to show it separately rather than hide it in a rate.
03
What the siding is made of
Wood needs more prep and takes more paint. Fibre cement takes less of both and holds a finish longer. Aluminium needs the right primer or nothing sticks. Brick and stone usually need nothing at all, which is why trim-only is a real option rather than a consolation.
04
The age of the house
Before 1978 means lead-safe practices wherever painted surfaces get disturbed, and that is 20 to 40 percent on an exterior. A great deal of the housing stock around Frederick, Thurmont and Emmitsburg falls on the older side of that line.
05
How many colours you want
Body, trim and accent is three cut lines, three set-ups and three times somebody cleans a brush. One colour is faster. Three colours on a Victorian with bracket detail is a different job to one colour on a rancher, and the quote should say which you are buying.
On the job
What you are paying for.
Trade photography, stage by stage — the work these numbers buy. Photos of our own recent jobs come out at the walkthrough, on the actual house.
Straight answers
Painting cost questions
Not covered here? Call and ask — you’ll get a real answer, not a “depends on the job”.
A whole-house exterior runs $4,000 to $12,000. A single-storey house with sound siding and one body colour sits near the bottom; a two-storey with failing caulk, bare wood and three colours sits near the top. Trim, fascia and soffit alone is $1,400 to $3,800.
Because of prep, nearly every time. Paint is a few hundred to a thousand dollars of the total, so the difference between quotes is hours — scraping, caulking, priming and the second coat. Compare what each quote says it will prepare, not what each quote costs.
Twenty to forty percent over a standard exterior repaint, for ground containment, controlled scraping and specialist cleanup under the EPA rule. Testing suspect surfaces first costs $250 to $600 and either removes the surcharge or confirms that it applies.
Yes. A wash and prep without a finish coat is $450 to $1,200, and it is a sensible thing to buy if you are selling or if the season has run out. Bear in mind that bare primed wood should not sit through a Maryland winter uncoated, so we will tell you which surfaces cannot wait.
Eight to twelve years on a well-prepared wood or fibre cement exterior in this climate, and less on a south or west elevation that takes the afternoon sun. Almost every early failure traces back to prep rather than paint, which is why the prep is where we spend the money.
While the crew is there
The trades that usually come with it
Talk to the people doing the work
Get a straight number for the whole job.
Tell us what needs doing. We’ll walk it with you, sequence every trade it touches, put the price in writing, and leave you to decide.
Get a quote
Let’s price your project.
Two short steps. No obligation, no pressure — just a clear number and a straight answer about what the job involves.
Tick as many as you like. Most jobs are two or three of them at once, and I sort out the detail when I come and look. Nobody gets turned away for choosing the wrong box.
