Painting your whole house at once has a dramatic impact that you’ll notice from the moment that the first room is complete. Major residential painting jobs are much different compared to just doing one room, and you’ll want to know how to prepare to make sure that the process goes as smoothly as possible.
One of the biggest things that you can do is work with your painting contractors to develop a schedule that works best for your needs. Depending upon the size of your house, this is a job that could span several days to weeks. During the time that we are painting, you might not be able to access certain rooms.
Although this might pose a temporary inconvenience, you can choose to have rooms that you use the most completed first. This allows you to move back into them right away while the painters work on the rest of the house. Your specific needs may vary, but we typically recommend this sequence for painting rooms to keep things running smoothly along.
Create a Bedroom Oasis
Being able to sleep in your room every night makes it easier to wake up refreshed each morning ready for the next phase of your interior painting project. This is also the one part of your house that you’ll feel the most impact from, so it is worth doing first. Master bedrooms are usually fairly large, and you’ll want to make sure that this project can start early in the morning. If so, then the paint should have enough time to dry before you are ready for bedtime. Being able to sink into your own bed helps you avoid the hassle of having to create a makeshift place to sleep if you don’t have a spare bedroom.
As we work on your master bedroom, we can also zero in on any other bedrooms that are critical for your family. Children tend to do better during major painting projects when they can relax in their own room at the end of the day. For nurseries, we can use low fume paints that are safe for the smallest members of your family. This lets you rest easy about painting this special room in the house. It’s also a good idea to let us know if you have a senior family member living in your home. We’ll also focus on their room first so that their daily routine isn’t thrown off by major changes.
You might also be curious about when to do the hallways, and these are right up at the top of the list, too. In most cases, hallways should be painted while doing the adjoining rooms. Since the rooms are already cleared out, it tends to be fairly easy for families to avoid these areas until the paint is dry.
Keep the Bathrooms Available
Bathrooms are one of the most essential rooms in every house and keeping one available at all times keeps your household running smoothly. Master bathrooms can often be completed during the time that we are painting the bedroom. This gives you the full experience of being able to feel like an important part of your house is complete.
If you have a bathroom that several people share, then you’ll also want to get it done first. This prevents you from having to pick who gets a shower first on those busy days. Since bathrooms are smaller, we can usually fit them into any part of your schedule so that no one has to wait too long to get ready for their day.
Plan for Painting the Kitchen
In our years of experience, we have learned that families can’t live without their kitchen for long. Most likely, your family spends lots of time in this room preparing meals, enjoying conversations and finishing up work for the day. This is also one of the larger rooms in your house, and painters often have to work around cabinets, appliances and other essential features. This means that it could take at least a day or two to finish the kitchen, even when we work at a quick, but thorough, pace.
We prefer to include kitchens as a high-priority part of the list, so you can expect for us to recommend going ahead with as soon as we’ve got your bedrooms and bathrooms covered. You can ask your painting contractor for ideas of how to survive while it is being painted, but we’ve found that most people choose to either enjoy a night out for dinner or pre-make some meals to heat up at home. You can often set up a temporary kitchen in another room by moving small appliances such as a microwave in there for a day or two.
Spruce Up the Living Room
Living areas tend to be a little more flexible when it comes to scheduling a paint job. If you are fortunate enough to have two living rooms, then you can just move your family activities into one while we do the other. Alternatively, you can pick out a spare room to hang out in for a day or just enjoy your time basking in the glow of a freshly painted kitchen.
We can also treat game rooms, home offices and other specialty rooms the same way. At Shamrock Painting & Wallpapering, we aim to please. Just let us know which rooms you want to open back up first so that we can arrange our services in the perfect order.
Love Your Laundry Room
When we put this one on the list, we found that people tend to fall into two categories. There are those who put off laundry for days and are fine with us painting whenever we can. Other people tend to keep loads running just about every day, and the thought of going without their essential room can be hard to deal with.
Since it tends to be hidden out of the way, we can paint this room whenever it works best within your preferred time frame. If the laundry room is a high priority area, then we recommend washing as much as you need the day before we arrive to paint. You should hopefully only have one day of downtime before you can resume your normal washing and drying routine.
Our painting team loves getting to know our New York residents, and we’ll ask you some questions about how you use your home when we visit for your consultation. Let us know which rooms you think are best to do first, and we’ll do everything we can to accommodate your needs. Once the process is complete, you’ll be able to enjoy walking through each room in your house and enjoying the colors that you picked out for the walls.