[bralph148]

I need to patch and paint old nail holes. According to my lease, I'm moving out of my house and I'm responsible for the holes. Not typical, but hey its a nice place. I was wondering, do I need to repaint the entire wall? The house is about 3100 Sqft. Almost every wall has nail marks. The walls are clean, meaning I don't see an outline where the old pictures were. I plan on going to the paint store with a paint chip. I have been told that they have the technology to match it up pretty close. If I were to contract it out, watch price range should I be in?

 

[misfitz]

Personally, I think you need to redo the whole wall if there are lots of little nail holes everywhere. You could patch them and try to paint the same color over all those little spots, but it will show up. You'll see the spots when you glance at the wall. And also, from my experience you've got to cut a whole square out of the wall in order for them to match it. A few years back I chipped off a small piece and brought it to home depot and they laughed at me.

 

[diy mike]

misfitz is right, you'll need to bring a clean paint sample that's at least 1" x 1" if you want to get a good match. If the landlord is planning on repainting everything once you leave I'd just patch and paint the holes. If you're required to paint so that the landlord doesn't have to, then I'd paint everything. No matter how close of a match you get the touch-ups will show. Not sure how much it would cost to have someone else do the work.

 

[bobpaints]

Too much work. Use some light weight spackling compound. Give it a couple of minutes to dry and then hit it with a damp sponge so there is no spackling anywhere except in the holes. Obviously if it looks terrible you will have to re-paint. Most likely, the landlord won’t even notice. Where I live, you can’t charge a tenant for paint if they have lived there for more than a year.