Painting is one of those satisfying tasks that transforms a space instantly. By changing the hue on your walls or ceiling, you can recast your space in whatever mood or aesthetic you’d like. But when you’re completing a larger, more complicated project, timing is essential, as you don’t want to risk bumping or scratching newly painted walls.
No matter what kind of renovation project you’re tackling, painting is almost always one of the last steps of a remodel. If you’d like to paint as a DIY, or have different plans for this stage of your renovation, you should paint after all the major functional work is completed.
Type of remodeling jobs and painting
You definitely want to time each stage of your remodeling project right to make the most of your efforts and materials. Completing all woodworking or projects involving water before you throw down a protective painting tarp is well worth your while, as sawdust or water droplets can ruin a brand new paint job.
Here are some of the more common renovation jobs and how to time them in regards to your painting job.
Woodwork
Anything that has to do with wood in general should be completed well before you put down a coat of paint. Usually woodwork involves cabinets or flooring, which means a good deal of sanding, resulting in a lot of sawdust. If you’ve just painted, the surface will remain tacky for a while. Drifting sawdust will make a mess of all your recent painting efforts, and you will have to paint all over again.
This theory also works in reverse. When painting over a newly refinished or replaced floor, professionals will make sure not to drip paint to mar the fresh surface.
Waterworks
Often, plumbing, kitchen or bathroom work involves replacing or removing faulty pipes. Even if this doesn’t mean directly spraying a new paint job with water, tackling any water-involved job after you paint is never a good idea.
A lot of plumbing or water-related projects hold the same risks that woodwork does. The materials, tools and methods are challenging to handle without dinging your new paint job. It’s always a good idea to make sure all spackling is dry before painting, and that means pipe transplantation should occur way before you dip your first roller.
Tiling
Balancing your remodeling with the time you splash on a new color is always tricky. You can damage a fresh paint by dinging it with other equipment, so you always want to make sure that your remodel first, then paint. If you complete tasks in that order, you only have to worry about splattering paint on new tiles or floors, an easily solved issue.
Tiling in particular causes a lot of particulates to hover, and this fine dust can ruin a paint job in only a few minutes of exposure. It’s usually the first step of a tiling project that puts a new paint job most at risk; extracting the old flooring kicks up a great deal of dust and debris.
Baseboards and trim
If you plan on replacing or repainting trim and baseboards, do the necessary work on these components, and then paint. It’s easy to clean up a few splatters on new baseboards, but you usually have to paint the walls over again if they get too scuffed up or are exposed to too many airborne contaminants.
Flooring
Whether you’re refinishing or putting in all new hardwood floors, you need to be sure to get all of the heavy prep work done beforehand. Then, paint when all the dust has cleared and everything has been swept up (or covered by a tarp).
Other tips for painting
When you’re tackling a remodeling project, you have a lot of balls in the air. It’s hard to keep track of what you should be doing, and when. With materials, tools and different professionals coming in and out, your place can get messy fast. That’s why putting a lot of effort into prepwork will pay off a lot in the long run. Here are some handy tips for painting if a new paint job is on your to-do list.
- Cabinets and backsplash: Unlike most details, you should paint your walls before putting up cabinets and backsplash, as this will reduce a lot of time and labor in the long run.
- Prep: No matter how expensive your paint is, no amount of paint is going to cover up a lack of prep. Cracks, nail holes and other surface disruptions will all come through even the priciest of paints. Take your time to spackle, fill and sand until you have a very smooth surface on which to work.
- Gloss: The amount of gloss in the paint you get correlates to how easy it is to put on the wall. Eggshell finish is best for walls, while semi-gloss works well for baseboards and trim. Satin is an ideal choice for cabinets.
If you have some things about your home that you’d like to adjust, make sure you time the remodeling or renovations right. Painting should usually be tackled after the rest of the work is done — except in the case of a kitchen renovation, when your cabinets and backsplash go up after you paint your walls. Along with excellent prep work and picking the right finish, make sure you go about finding a service provider in a timely and effective manner. At Home Pros can help you connect to reputable painters near you, so you can get as many or as few quotes as you like. Contact us today to help you get on the right track, right away.