One crew, one job at a time. Before anything is opened we give you a written schedule with a day against every part of the work, and the last line of it is the day we are out of your house. An interior of three bedrooms and a hall is four days. It has been four days for eleven years.
This is the schedule for a typical interior. A whole house, or plaster that needs real repair, runs longer and we say so in the quote rather than after we start.
Furniture comes to the middle of each room and gets covered. Switch plates, vents and door furniture come off and go into a labelled bag per room. Floors get paper, not a sheet that slides. Anything that will not move gets masked.
This is the day people are surprised by, because nothing looks like it is happening. It is the day that decides whether the edges are straight.
You can sleep in the house tonight. No fumes, nothing wet.
Nail holes and dents filled and sanded flat. Gaps at trim and where trim meets wall get caulked, which is the difference between a paint job and a painted room. Water stains, knots and any bare patch get spot primed so they do not ghost through the finish.
There is dust today. We sand with a vacuum on the sander and we wipe down at the end, but it is the dusty day and it is better to know that.
You can sleep in the house tonight.
Ceilings first, always, because anything that comes off a roller lands on what is below it. Then the first coat goes on every wall in the job. At the end of today the colour is on and it will look patchy and slightly wrong. That is what one coat looks like and it is why there is a day four.
Sleep elsewhere tonight if anyone in the house is pregnant, asthmatic, or under two. Otherwise the low odour paint we use is fine by bedtime with a window cracked.
Second coat on the walls, then trim and doors cut in by hand. Then the part nobody photographs: plates and vents back on out of the labelled bags, furniture back where it was rather than approximately where it was, paper up, floors vacuumed.
We walk the job with you before the van is loaded, not after. Anything you point at gets fixed while the paint is still open, which is a different thing from being told to make a list and ring back.
Your house is yours again by about four o'clock.
Every painter says they prep. Here is the list, so you can hold a cheaper quote against it and see what has been left out.
Posted so you can work out roughly where you land before anyone comes to the house. Every one of these includes the prep list above and two finish coats.
Paint is included at a mid grade from a trade supplier. If you want a particular line we will price it and show you the difference rather than absorbing it quietly. Quotes are free, they are written, and they hold for 30 days.
Said here rather than after you have rung, so nobody wastes an afternoon.