If you live in Katy and you’re trying to budget for a paint job, here are the honest numbers for 2026. An exterior repaint runs $2,500 to $16,000+, a full interior repaint runs $3,000 to $20,000+, and kitchen cabinets run about $4,100 to $5,000 for a typical kitchen. A whole-home exterior on a standard 2,000 sq ft house usually lands around $5,000 to $8,000. Where you fall inside those ranges comes down to your home’s size, how many stories it has, what your walls are made of, and how much prep the surfaces need before any paint goes on.
I’m Chris, owner of The Proud Paintbrush. We’re locally owned and have been painting Katy homes since 2020 — from Cinco Ranch and Cane Island to Falcon Point, Firethorne, Tamarron, and Cross Creek Ranch. Katy homeowners want a real number before anyone walks the property, so here’s the full breakdown of what painting actually costs out here and what moves the price.
What drives the cost to paint a house in Katy?
There’s no flat rate, and anyone who quotes you one over the phone is guessing. A handful of factors do almost all the work in setting your price:
- Home size and stories. More wall area means more material and more hours, and every added story multiplies the access work. A single-story home in older Cinco Ranch is a very different job than a 3,500 sq ft two-story in Cane Island, where reaching that second story safely means more ladder and scaffold time.
- Surface type. Katy housing stock leans heavily on Hardie fiber-cement siding and brick, with full-stucco elevations common in Cane Island. Each surface preps and coats differently — Hardie has miles of board edges to cut in and needs spot-priming at field cuts and fasteners, brick wants a breathable coating, and stucco drinks more paint and needs crack and corner detail.
- Condition and prep. This is the biggest swing. Pressure washing, scraping, caulking failed seams, repairing wood and trim, and priming bare spots all happen before color goes on. A sound exterior is straightforward; one with peeling paint, sun-baked caulk, or rotted fascia carries real prep labor.
- HOA realities. Most Katy subdivisions have an HOA, and communities like Cinco Ranch require color approval before you paint. That doesn’t raise the paint cost directly, but it shapes your color options and timeline — something we factor in up front.
Exterior painting prices in Katy
Size and stories do most of the heavy lifting, so here’s where most Katy exteriors land:
- Small homes & partial exteriors: $2,500–$5,000
- Medium homes: $5,000–$10,000
- Large homes & full two-story repaints: $10,000–$16,000+
A typical 2,000 sq ft home usually runs $5,000–$8,000, and most whole-home exterior repaints fall between $4,500 and $15,000+. Underneath those bands, we price off the actual walls: roughly $2.00–$2.50 per sq ft on stucco and siding, $1.75–$2.50 per linear ft for trim, and $120–$180 per door. You can see the full breakdown on our exterior painting price ranges page, or read more about exterior painting in Katy and how we handle Hardie and brick elevations here.
Interior painting prices in Katy
Interior repaints in Katy run between $3,000 and $20,000+ for a full home, with most projects landing in the middle. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Single room: $500–$1,500
- Multiple rooms: $1,500–$5,000
- Full interior: $3,000–$20,000+
Our interior rates are built on the real work involved: $2.00 per sq ft for walls, $1.20 per sq ft for ceilings, $1.92 per linear ft for baseboards, $96 per door, and $54 per window, with primer at $1.00 per sq ft when it’s needed for new drywall or a dark-to-light color change. Most of the Katy interiors we’re called into started as thin builder-grade paint that scuffs and flashes within a couple of years — a real repaint is a better product, the right sheen per room, and prep that wipes clean instead of smearing. See more on interior painting in Katy.
Cabinet painting prices in Katy
Cabinet painting is the most detail-intensive work we do, and it’s priced per door and per drawer with a job minimum. Most Katy cabinet projects fall here:
- Bathroom vanity: $650–$1,200
- Typical kitchen (about 25 doors and 10 drawers): $4,100–$5,000
- Large kitchen with island and built-ins: $5,500–$7,500+
The per-unit rates are $120–$145 per door and $110–$135 per drawer, with a $650 job minimum. Cabinets cost more than walls because of everything that happens before the finish: removing and labeling doors and hardware, degreasing, detailed sanding, bonding primer, and a controlled spray finish that cures to a smooth, factory-like surface. That’s exactly why shortcut cabinet jobs peel and chip early. See full details on cabinet painting in Katy.
What’s included in a quality quote?
When one Katy quote comes in far below the rest, it’s almost never a discount — it’s because something got left out. A real estimate should spell out the whole process, not just a color and a number. On every job we include:
- Pressure washing and surface cleaning
- Surface prep — scraping, sanding, caulking, and patching
- Protection of landscaping, floors, and furniture
- Primer where it’s actually needed
- Professional paint application using Sherwin-Williams products
- Cleanup and a final walkthrough
- Our 2 & 5-Year Written Warranty
The cheapest bid is usually a spray-and-go: a quick wash, skipped caulking and wood repair, one thin coat, and out by lunch. Those shortcuts look fine the day they hand it back and obvious a year later, when the south wall fades unevenly and the seams peel. Redoing a rushed job costs you twice, because the next crew has to strip the failure before they can start. In Katy’s climate — intense sun, high humidity, and storm-driven rain that’s already weathered most local exteriors through Harvey and the 2021 freeze — honest prep is the part that makes the paint last.
How do I get an exact number for my home?
Every Katy home is different, so the only accurate price is one based on your actual walls, trim, and surfaces. We walk the property in person, check the condition and surface type, talk through colors and any HOA approval your subdivision requires, and hand you a clear written estimate — no pressure and no phone-quote guesswork. You can compare all of our ranges side by side on our painting prices page.
The Proud Paintbrush is a fully insured residential painting contractor, locally owned and serving Katy and Fort Bend County since 2020. Whether you’re in Cinco Ranch, Cane Island, Falcon Point, or any of the newer Katy subdivisions, request a free in-home painting estimate and we’ll give you a real number and an honest plan for making it last. Call us at (832) 605-0493 and we’ll get you on the schedule.