Thanks for the thoughtful response, Mushroombert.

I guess what I'm trying to get to is how much is the actual painting portion, rather than prep/body work that might need to be done? Based on your response and Bjorn's my rough guess is between $2000-$3000. Using the $1000 for paint and about 8 hours of actual painting time at $50 - $100 an hour, gets you to $1400 - $1800. Add in profit and misc. gets you to $2000-$3000.

While we don't know what paint was needed in the original post that started this thread, $4500 just for painting does seem high.