How to Prepare Your Home for Professional Interior Painting
You’ve made the step and accepted our quote for a professional house painter to come redecorate your interior walls and ceilings – congratulations! Now, all you have to do is wait for us to show up and get started, right? Wrong. While our team can handle all the prep work for the surfaces to be painted, there are a few things you might want to do before we whip our paintbrushes and rollers.
Remove breakables & wall hangings
If you’ve got any valuable items out and about that are fragile or breakable, we recommend storing them out of the rooms to be painted. This includes any ornaments or free-standing decorative items, even plants. It would also be a great help to our team if all wall hangings such as picture frames, clocks, mirrors, and other decorative items be removed from the wall prior to our arrival. This will help us complete the job faster and ensure they do not get damaged. If all rooms are being painted, you may pile the items onto a large piece of furniture in the center of the room and cover it with an old bed sheet or other such items to protect them from any flecks of paint – particularly if you are having your ceiling painted.
Remove curtains & rugs
Taking down your curtains and blinds (including shower curtains if the bathroom is being painted) can be considered an additional cost so doing this yourself will save you a bit of extra money. Additionally, rolling up rugs and putting away throws can help protect them from any paint splatter. Alternatively, you can cover these items with a tarp or an old bed sheet if you have one handy.
Move obstructions
Our painters usually required about 2m of space from the wall to get a ladder in and work safely. We understand that sometimes it is not always possible to move bulky items away from the wall, particularly if you live alone, however, we would appreciate any efforts to move furniture before our arrival. If any obstructions have been moved away from the wall and out of our pathway, we are more likely to get to the job done faster and more efficiently which is mutually beneficial.
Cleaning the rooms
It’s often a good idea to give the room a full, thoroughly clean, prior to the new paint is applied so that any dust or dirt lurking in the room is not stirred up and settles into the new paint job before it’s had a chance to dry. The day before we are due to paint your house, we recommend vacuuming the floor and washing down the walls and ceiling if possible.
Vacate the house if possible
Not only does paint often cause fumes but kids and pets interrupting the workspace can slow things down. To minimise the likelihood of accidents, we usually ask for residents and pets to vacate the house while we work. We understand this is not always possible, setting up one space for pets and children to play in is an alternative many have chosen to do.
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Preparation ahead of time will reduce the time it takes to finish the job, protect valuable household articles, and save you money in having to clean or replace items damaged from paint splatter. It also reduces the risk of household items getting damaged while being moved by the painter.
Every painting job and house is unique, so if you have any questions about prepping your home for a paint job, just give our team at Wes Hull Painters a call on 0400 528 648.