A painting crew works faster and cleaner in a house that is ready for them, and most of what makes a house ready takes an evening. Here are the four things worth doing before the crew arrives, whether the job is an interior, an exterior, or a kitchen full of cabinets.
1. Clear and protect the rooms being painted
Walk through each room on the schedule and take down anything on the walls: pictures, mirrors, shelves, curtain rods if the windows are being painted around, and the hardware that holds them if you want the holes patched. Move small furniture, lamps, plants, and anything breakable out of the room entirely. Pull larger pieces toward the center so the crew can cover them and still reach the walls, or ask what they will move; the contract should already say who handles which.
Empty closets that are being painted, including the shelves. Clear countertops and the tops of dressers. If electronics or a piano are staying put, say so, so they are covered first. On a cabinet project, empty every cabinet and drawer being refinished, and set up a temporary place for the things you use daily, because the kitchen will be partly out of service while the finish cures.
Alliance Painting protects the house under its Contaminate-Free Painting system, which keeps your home clean and protected while the crew works, and the crew will cover floors, fixtures, and whatever stays in the room. Clearing first simply means they spend the morning painting instead of carrying.
2. Confirm colors, sheens, and scope in writing
Everything the crew needs to know should be settled before day one, not decided at the door. That means a final color and sheen for each surface, written down and matched to the proposal, and any changes you made after signing, such as adding a closet or dropping a ceiling, recorded as a change order. If a sample is still on the wall and you are undecided, call the project manager now rather than when the roller is loaded.
If the house was built before 1978 and the crew will be sanding or scraping old paint, confirm how they will contain and clean up the dust. If the exterior needs HOA approval, have it in hand.
3. Set the house up for the crew
A few practical things make the days go smoothly:
- Decide where the crew will park and where paint and equipment will be staged, usually the garage or a covered spot near the door.
- Point out the water spigot the crew can use and a bathroom they can use.
- Share gate codes or alarm instructions with the project manager, and decide whether you will be home or how they will get in.
- Keep pets in a closed room or out of the house. Paint fumes, open doors, and wet surfaces are a poor combination with a curious dog or cat, and a crew that has to watch for them works more slowly.
- Tell the crew about anything delicate: a crack that always reopens, a floor that scratches, a wall where something is mounted on the other side.
For an exterior, turn off the sprinklers for the duration of the job, because a wet wall cannot be painted and a wet lawn cannot hold a ladder. Move cars out of the driveway and away from the house if any spraying is planned, trim shrubs and branches back from the walls so the crew can reach them, and take down porch furniture, wind chimes, and hose reels. If anything in the beds is fragile, mention it; the crew will drape it, but it helps to know what matters to you.
4. Plan the days the crew is there
Ask what time the crew arrives and leaves and how many days the job should take. Then decide where you will be. You do not need to leave, but each room is out of use while it is being painted and again while it dries, so a bedroom project means sleeping elsewhere that night, and a kitchen project means meals from somewhere else for a stretch. Plan the order of rooms around what you need most, and tell the project manager if a room has to be finished by a particular day.
Know who your contact is and how to reach them. A well-run project gives you a quick update at the end of each day, and anything the crew finds under old paint, such as water damage or a loose seam, should be priced and agreed in writing before it is repaired. Keep the final walkthrough on your calendar too, because that is where small misses are caught and the punch list is written before the last payment.
Those four steps are the same whether the crew is coming to Dallas, Keller or Coppell, and the Interior Painting and Exterior Painting pages describe what Alliance Painting handles once they arrive.