You do not need to empty the house. But an hour or two of preparation the night before genuinely speeds up the first morning, and on a job quoted by the day, faster mornings are your money.
What to do yourself
Take down what is personal or fragile. Photographs, mirrors, artwork, shelves of small things, anything with sentimental value. Not because a crew is careless, but because the safest place for an irreplaceable object is a different room.
Clear the surfaces. Bedside tables, dressers, windowsills, mantelpieces. Anything left out has to be moved by someone, and it is faster and safer if that someone is you.
Empty the closets if closets are being painted. This is the one people forget, and it stops a job dead on the morning.
Take down curtains and blinds in the rooms being painted, along with their hardware if the walls around the window are being done properly.
Say where you want things to end up. If you are planning to rearrange the room anyway, mention it — moving furniture once is easier than moving it twice.
What the crew should handle
- Moving the large furniture to the centre of the room and covering it
- Protecting floors properly, wall to wall
- Masking trim, fixtures, outlets and switch plates
- Removing switch and outlet covers where the walls are being painted
- Filling, sanding and priming
- Cleaning up at the end of each day
If you are being asked to shift a sofa yourself on the morning, that is worth clarifying before the day.
Pets and children
This is the part most worth planning.
Fresh paint is not the main risk — the doors are. On a working day the front door opens and closes constantly, and it gets propped open when materials come in. Cats in particular find this out immediately.
The practical answer is one room the crew is not working in, with the door shut and the pet in it, or a day elsewhere. Tell the crew there is a pet in the house and which door must stay closed.
Modern interior paints are low-odour and many are low- or zero-VOC, but “low odour” is not “no odour” and small children and anyone with a respiratory condition are better off out of the immediate rooms while work is underway and for a few hours afterwards. Ventilate, and keep windows open where the weather allows.
Access, parking and the practical stuff
Parking. Ladders, drop sheets and paint all come out of a vehicle repeatedly through the day. If parking is tight, permit-only, or a long walk from the door, say so in advance — it changes how the day is planned.
Keys and timing. Agree who is letting the crew in and when. A crew standing outside at 8am is time you are paying for.
Power and water. Sanding and cleanup both need them. If the room being painted has no working outlet, mention it.
Wifi is not needed. Nobody should be asking.
If you are in a condo
Condo work has a whole extra layer, and it is the most common cause of a delayed start:
- Book the service elevator. Most buildings require it, many charge a deposit, and the slots go quickly. This is the single thing most likely to delay a condo repaint.
- Check the building’s rules. Working hours, insurance certificates required from contractors, and whether management needs notice.
- Loading dock access and where the crew can park to unload.
- Some buildings restrict odours, which affects product choice — worth flagging early.
Find this out before you agree a date, not after.
Colour decisions
Decide before day one. Changing your mind on the morning is expensive, and changing it after the first coat is more expensive still.
Some practical advice:
- Test on the actual wall, not on a chip held against it. Paint a decent patch — bigger than you think — and leave it.
- Look at it at three times of day. North-facing rooms go cool and grey; west-facing rooms go warm and orange in the late afternoon. The same colour genuinely looks like two different colours.
- Look at it against your floor and your furniture, not against a white wall.
- Whites are not one colour. A warm white next to a cool white looks dirty. Pick one temperature and stay in it.
- Ceilings. Flat white is the default for a reason — it hides unevenness. A ceiling in the wall colour, one or two shades lighter, is a nice effect but shows every flaw.
If you genuinely cannot decide, it is better to delay the start than to commit and change your mind halfway through.
The night before
A short list:
- Valuables and fragile things out of the rooms
- Surfaces cleared, closets emptied if being painted
- Curtains and blinds down
- Pets sorted, and the crew told about them
- Parking arranged, elevator booked
- Colours confirmed in writing
- Somebody available on the phone during the day