How to Prepare Your Home for Professional Painters

Moving furniture, covering floors, masking fixtures and protecting landscaping is our work, and you shouldn't be doing it. But there are a handful of things only you can handle, and doing them before day one makes the whole project quicker and calmer.

Do these before we arrive

1. Take down anything irreplaceable. Family photographs, artwork, heirlooms and anything with sentimental value should be off the walls and out of the work area. We'll protect everything, but we'd rather you didn't have to trust us with the irreplaceable things.
2. Empty what we'd otherwise have to move around. Clearing closets that are being painted, bathroom counters, and the tops of dressers and bookshelves saves real time.
3. Decide about pets. Painting days involve open doors, unfamiliar people and equipment in walkways. A plan for where the dog or cat will be, whether a closed room, a neighbour or day care, protects the pet and the schedule.
4. Point out anything we should know. A loose outlet, a section of wall that always cracks in the same place, a window that leaks in storms, a floor board that lifts. Telling us on day one is far better than us finding it.
5. Confirm access and parking. Where we can park, which entrance to use, gate codes, alarm procedure and where the exterior water and power are.

For exterior work specifically

• Move vehicles out of the driveway on spraying days, and ask a neighbour to move anything parked directly against the boundary if the side yard is narrow.
• Trim back plants touching the wall if you'd prefer to do it yourself. Otherwise we'll tie them back.
• Unlock gates, and let us know about irrigation timers so we're not coating a wall the sprinklers are about to hit.
• Tell us about pool equipment, outdoor speakers, cameras and low-voltage lighting so they get masked rather than discovered.

What you don't need to do

Don't move heavy furniture. That's what we're for, and it's how people get hurt. Don't buy drop cloths or plastic. Don't patch holes yourself before we come; unmatched filler and texture usually make more work, not less.

And don't clean the walls. Washing and de-glossing is part of the preparation scope, done with the right products for the surface.

Living in the house while it happens

You almost never need to move out for an interior repaint. We section off the work area, protect everything inside it, and keep your kitchen and at least one bathroom usable throughout. Modern interior coatings are much lower in odour than they used to be, and the work area is ventilated as we go.

For cabinet refinishing we can spray doors and drawer fronts off the property, so you keep your kitchen. You're just without cabinet doors for a few days.

The last day

Walk the job with us in daylight. Bring a critical eye and point at anything you're not happy with. That's what the walkthrough is for, and it's much easier to fix while we're still on site than to book a return trip.

The interior painting page covers our full sequence, and our process page sets out what happens at each of the five stages.