Painting is like the dress of a house, and without a good paint job (both interior and exterior), no living space is complete and comfortable. Moreover, painting expenses are categorized into two parts, maintenance, and capital expense.
This leads to a long-standing question, is painting considered maintenance, or is it a capital expense? It’s a tricky question, not just because it uses difficult words like capital expense, etc. but because it doesn’t have a definite single-word answer.
To answer if painting is considered maintenance or a capital expense, well, it depends on the situation and scenario in which you find yourself facing the need for painting.
From my experience at Weiler Painting, I believe that this question troubles a lot of customers. If you want the right answer, read on.
Defining the Two Key Terms
Experts in the painting industry are probably pretty familiar with the terms maintenance and capital expense, but everyone is not an expert. I’m going to break out these two terms and explain the difference between them.
Maintenance Expense
Maintenance expenses refer to expenses incurred when you do regular repairs and routine maintenance of your property. These maintenance tasks and enhancements help to maintain your house and keep it beautiful. Moreover, maintenance expenses are usually smaller than capital expenses and cover a specific repair or maintenance.
Capital Expense
Capital expenses, in contrast, refer to expenses or investments in your house or property. Its purpose is to improve or enhance the house. Moreover, capital expenses are more often one-time expenses that are part of a larger project, and they help increase property value and curb appeal. You can get tax reductions done on this due to the large-scale work.
Examples of Both Types of Expenses
To better clarify the difference between maintenance and capital expense, I have listed out some examples of both these terms, concerning houses and painting factors. They will help in categorizing expenses.
Examples of Maintenace
- Touching up the paint on the different walls in the house to maintain the interior design like cabinet repainting
- Painting to cover wear and tear and to refresh the overall look of the rooms
- Repainting the metal railings around windows, terraces, etc. to protect against corrosion and rust.
- Repainting the window trims, door trims, and exterior wood trims to protect them against weather damage.
Examples of Capital Expenses
- Repainting the whole exterior of your house or property, as part of a bigger renovation project
- Having the exterior repainted to improve its appearance and increase your property’s value
- When you get your house interior repainted as part of a larger property remodeling
- Another example is the repainting of the common areas like the living room, drawing room, kitchen, etc. when you are getting renovations done.
3 Factors that Determine Expense Type
With only the difference between maintenance expense and capital expense cleared, you can’t pinpoint determine which expense it is. You also need to consider a few factors to solidify which type your painting is.
The Purpose Behind Painting: The reason behind painting your house’s interior, exterior, etc. determines what type of expense it is. If you’re doing painting as routine upkeep and to touch up the walls, it’s most likely maintenance. However, if painting gets covered in a larger renovation scheme to increase your property’s value, it’s a capital expense.
Scope of the Entire Project: If you are only getting a single room painted or touching up the walls and trims on a few specific areas, you can consider this painting as maintenance. On the other hand, if the painting covers multiple rooms, involves repainting trims, metal railings, and ceiling repainting, and is done on a large scale, it’s a capital expense for sure.
Overall Cost of the Entire Project: If the cost of the repainting, etc. is relatively low and doesn’t cover a significant investment, you’re dealing with maintenance, but if the cost and investment are large-term, it’s a capital investment.
Key Takeaways For You
To answer whether a painting is considered a maintenance or a capital expense depends on a few factors like the purpose, cost, and scope of the project. Moreover, maintenance involves routine repair/repainting, and capital expense refers to a large-scale painting or repainting on your property.
Weiler Painting can help you get the painting done on your property for both maintenance expenses and capital expenses. We offer interior and exterior repainting, condo & apartment painting, and much more!
