Getting Your Home Ready for Interior Painters

Interior painting is more disruptive than people expect, not because it is messy when done properly, but because rooms are out of use and furniture ends up somewhere else. A little preparation makes the job faster, which usually makes it cheaper, and makes living through it much easier.

What to move, and what we will move

Most painters will move heavy furniture to the centre of the room and cover it. What is genuinely helpful if you can do it beforehand:

• Small items. Ornaments, books, lamps, photo frames, anything on shelves or a mantelpiece. These take longer to handle carefully than everything else combined.
• Wall hangings. Pictures, mirrors, TVs on brackets. If you want the holes filled, say so before work starts, and mark anything you want left in place.
• Curtains and blinds. Take curtains down. Blinds can often stay if they lift clear, but check.
• Anything fragile or irreplaceable. Put it in a room that is not being painted.
• Wardrobes, if the interiors are being painted. Worth asking about at quoting stage, because it is easy to assume either way.

Leave the heavy things. Sofas, beds, bookcases and appliances are part of the job and are safer moved by the people who will be working around them.

Fittings and fixtures

Switch plates and socket covers usually come off and go back on. Say beforehand if anything is unusual, brittle or non-standard. If you have hooks, brackets or curtain tracks you want removed permanently, mention it early rather than on the day.

Access, keys and time

Agree who lets the crew in and at what time. If you are out during the day, sort out a key arrangement in advance rather than on the first morning. Tell them about the alarm, and about any part of the house that is off limits.

Let them know if anyone in the house works nights or shifts, or if there is a baby sleeping in the afternoons. Sanding is loud and it can usually be scheduled around a nap if someone knows.

Pets and children

Doors get left open, wet surfaces are at nose height, and there is equipment on the floor. Cats in particular find their way onto a freshly painted windowsill. Plan for pets to be somewhere else, or in a closed room the crew knows not to open.

How long a room is out of action

As a rough guide, a straightforward bedroom is a day or two: preparation and the first coat, then the second coat. Rooms with a lot of trim, or where wallpaper is coming off, or where there is significant repair, take longer.

You can usually move back into a room the evening after the final coat, but be gentle with it. Paint is dry to touch long before it has fully cured, which typically takes a couple of weeks. Until then, avoid scrubbing walls, pushing furniture hard against them or taping anything to them.

Smell and ventilation

Modern waterborne paints have far lower odour than older solvent-based products, and low-VOC options are available if anyone in the house is sensitive. Mention it at quoting stage and it can be specified.

Ventilation still helps, and here Wellington creates a small problem: opening every window on a wet or blustery day can slow drying or blow debris onto wet surfaces. Follow the crew’s lead on which windows to open and when.

A phased approach

If the whole house is being done and you are living in it, ask for the work to be phased so you always have a bedroom and a bathroom available. Most painters will happily sequence it that way if they know in advance. It is much harder to rearrange once the job has started.

Before the crew leaves

Walk each room in daylight and look at the cut lines where wall meets ceiling, the edges around switches and the inside of the door reveals. Note anything that needs attention while everyone is still there. Also ask for the leftover paint, labelled by room, and keep it somewhere it will not freeze. Touch-ups in two years are far easier with the actual product.

Planning an interior repaint

If you would like a quote, or want to talk through how to phase a whole-house job, get in touch. There is more about our interior house painting work in Wellington.