Painting Interior House, Smoke Alarms, 1-800 JUNK Dumpsters

[umsami]

Yes, I know weird topic.

 

So, we have a house that we need to do some work on.  Can somebody give me some rough estimates on what it would cost to paint the interior of a 2100 square foot house....either oneself (including time) or hiring a professional?  I realize that paint quality matters...so assume a good, but not super premium brand.  As for professional painters, most I know use Sherwin Williams.

 

 

Also, a previous tenant took down all of the smoke alarms.  These are on high ceilings....think 17 feet+.  I have a ladder to reach them, but who do I hire to install new ones.  It seems like whatever this guy did, he took off the base and everything.  All I see is a metal rectangular box with two holes on the side and the wires in the middle.  Is this just a general handyman job? Do I call an electrician?  Our fire department says they'll help install fire alarms if you need their help, but I feel weird calling them.

 

Finally, for those who've used 1-800 GOT JUNK or similar dumpsters, do you recommend it? Do they really donate/give away what they can?

 

TIA. :)

[gingersmom]

I used a handyman service to install smoke detectors.

 

No clue with what 1-800-junk did with my stuff but so happy they came and took my stuff at a reasonable price.

[rebbyribs]

I just painted almost all of the interior of a 2200 sq ft house (+ ~500 sq ft basement).  I think the paint and painting supplies cost about $1200 (we have 10% sales tax and a "paint care fee" of another $0.75 per gallon, so your paint and supply costs might run less).  I needed 2 coats of paint in most areas, and I had to do the ceilings.  Most of the trim is unpainted wood though.  It took about 2.5 months of working all day most weekends, plus my mom came out for 2 weeks and we worked together on the weekends and would trade off working for about 4 hours during the weekdays.  I would estimate the prep (cleaning, patching cracks, etc.) and painting together took about 150 hours of work.

 

Could you just put battery-operated smoke detectors on the walls at a height you can comfortably reach?  I wouldn't want smoke detectors at 17+ feet to go off while I was cooking!

[Um_2_4]

Well, we are in CA (so high COL) and we had about 1300 sq ft of this house professionally painted and it ran us $900 with 2 custom colors and good paint (dunn edwards). We got many bids, several were quite a bit higher, but we felt comfortable with this guy. We have 17ft ceilings also and I did not want DH painting up there.

We then did the rest ourselves (or rather DH did LOL) and for the remaining 800 sq feet (ie upstairs bedrooms) it took DH 2 weekends working ALL day and about 8 evenings (from say 5pm-10pm). But those bedrooms were all custom colors (2 each) and 2 of the bedrooms had really dark colors and required a primer/base coating. Killz works awesome. One room was DARK brown and it covered it all.

 

And I agree about relocating the smoke detectors..... none are on our 17ft ceilings. All are down lower in hallways. Check with the fire dept if that is up to code. How do you change batteries???? Ours are on the house circuit but also have a backup battery that beeps 1x a year to be changed. (SO annoying when that happens in the night :glare: ).

[MooCow]

I would have the local fire station install them. It would be a great lesson for the kiddos, and I know our fire persons would enjoy the non emergency action.

 

As for 1800junk, I'm curious as well since I want to use them this fall.

 

As for paint, when we had most of our downstairs done, (about 1600 Sq feet) we paid labor around $900, and for all supplies. He used porter paint, I think it was around $300.