Decor: what's best practice for painting interior walls

[GeneDavis]

My out-of-box X16 walls, interior and exterior (like Siding-6) walls have materials set as "Drywall" as default.

 

So the walls are a color, a material named "Drywall."  And the material reports to material lists in sheets with sizes like 1/2 x 54 x 144.

 

There is no thin paint layer.

 

What is best practice for painting walls?

[robdyck]

Painting them will not affect the materials list, unless you edit the components tab of a room.

Assuming you want a room painted the same on all its walls, you can paint walls in 'room mode' or edit the wall material by opening the room specification dialog.

I don't like adding material regions or custom backsplashes anywhere other than where very necessary to prevent the plan from slowing down.

The same for unnecessary wall layers; I wouldn't recommend adding a wall layer for paint unless you know of a specific reason to.

[MPDesign]

In your default wall type.

I like to add a 0" thick layer inside the drywall, set to the paint color of your choice. I think it should report as square feet in a material list.

and other ways I'm sure

 

[Joe_Carrick]

Material Regions work very well.  You can even create stripes, etc.