Geometry

The walls and ceiling in your bedroom need to be painted, and the painters’ estimates to do the work are far too expensive. You decide that you will paint the bedroom yourself. The bedroom is 14 ft. 3 in. by 16 ft., and the ceiling is 8 ft. high. The color of paint you have selected covers 75 sq. ft. per gallon, and costs $33.50 per gallon. The ceiling will be painted with a bright white ceiling paint that costs $28.50 per gallon but only covers 50 sq. ft. per gallon. There is one window in the room, and it is 3 ft. 4 in. by 5 ft. and will not be painted. The inside of the bedroom door is to be painted the same color as the walls. Describe and discuss how you will use Polya’s problem-solving techniques to determine how much it will cost to paint this room with two coats of paint (on both walls and ceiling). Then, using your solution strategy, determine how much it will actually cost to paint your bedroom.  Assuming you can paint 100 sq. ft. per hour, what will be the work time needed to paint your bedroom? (Because different paint lots of the same color may appear slightly different colors, when painting a room, you should buy all of your paint at one time and intermix the paint from at least two different cans so that the walls will all be exactly the same color.)