What one bedroom costs
Expect roughly $600 to $1,000 for a single room of that size, which works out well above the $2.75 to $5.50 range people quote for larger jobs.
Bringing the drum sander, the edger, the buffer and the extraction unit into the house, taping the doorways and covering the returns takes the same morning whether the room is 144 feet or 1,400.
- How it is done
- 144 square feet, under most companies' minimum
- What goes on the floor
- same three-pass sequence regardless of size
- Ready to use
- n/a
- Typical cost
- $2.75 – $5.50 per sq ft
- Service life
- n/a
Why the per-foot rate goes up on a small room
A small room is also proportionally more edge than field. In a 12 by 12 there are 48 linear feet of perimeter, and edging is hand work with a small machine that goes far slower than the big one.
Most contractors carry a minimum charge for exactly this reason, typically in the $500 to $800 range in this market, and a single small bedroom often simply hits that minimum.
If you have two or three rooms to do, doing them in one visit costs much less than each of them alone, because the setup is paid for once.
The matching problem nobody mentions
The other thing a single room brings is the matching problem. A bedroom refinished on its own will not match the hallway outside it, and the doorway is where you see it.
Closets are not floor area
A 12 by 12 with a closet is not 144 square feet of sanding. Closets are edge work almost entirely, and a walk-in adds meaningfully more time than its area suggests.
Where these prices apply
We cover Des Moines, the western suburbs, the Ankeny corridor and the older neighbourhoods inside the city, including and 18 more areas.
Questions we get asked about cost for a 12x12 room
How much to refinish a 12x12 bedroom?
About $600 to $1,000, or whatever the contractor's minimum charge is, which in Des Moines is typically $500 to $800.
Why is a small room so expensive per foot?
Setup, containment and edging are close to fixed. Only the field sanding scales with area, and in a small room the field is the smaller part.
Is it cheaper to do several rooms at once?
Considerably. The setup is paid once and the per-foot rate drops toward the normal range.
Get a free estimate
Tell us what you need. We answer the same day, the free estimate is on site, and nobody chases you afterwards.
Get a real number for your floor
Call and we will come out, measure, and leave you a written quote. There is no charge for the visit and no obligation afterwards.