Interior painting
Interior painting without turning your home upside down.
Interior work happens in a space you are still using. This page covers what that actually involves — what moves, what is protected, how preparation and coats are decided, and what counts as finished.
Before we start
Interior painting: the three things people ask first.
What do I need to move?
Smaller and breakable things are easiest if you handle them — pictures, electronics, what is on the shelves. Furniture is moved to the middle of the room or covered where it sits. Which of those applies to each room is agreed at the walkthrough, not decided on the first morning.
Can we stay in the space?
Usually, yes. Interior work is normally done room by room so the rest of the property stays in use. The order rooms are painted in is something we plan with you, around the rooms you cannot give up.
What gets protected?
Floors are covered, furniture is covered, and fixtures, hardware, switches and trim edges are masked before anything is opened. Protection goes down first and comes up at the end, and work areas are tidied at the end of each day.
The decisions
Walls, ceilings, doors and trim: what gets decided, and when.
Most of what determines the price of an interior job is settled before any painting starts. These are the decisions that make the difference.
Walls, ceilings, trim and doors are separate decisions
They are different surfaces with different preparation, different products and often different finishes, and each one is priced as its own line. Painting the walls of a room does not automatically include its ceiling, its trim or its doors — which is why the scope lists them individually instead of naming the room.
Preparation is set by the surface, not by a package
Filling, sanding, caulking and spot priming are decided by what the surface is actually doing — nail pops, hairline cracks, previous patching, a glossy finish that will not hold a new coat. What each surface needs is written into the scope so it is priced rather than discovered.
Color and sheen are decided with you, then written down
You do not need either settled before you get in touch. Sheen changes how a color reads and how a surface cleans, so it is chosen surface by surface and recorded room by room, rather than one finish applied to a whole house by default.
Coats are determined, never assumed
There is no standard number. The existing color, the new color, how porous or patched the surface is, the product and the finish all change what it takes to get an even result. The planned coats are established during the walkthrough and written into your scope, so they are part of the price rather than a surprise.
Commercial interiors
The same work, a different set of constraints.
An office, a retail unit or a common area is an interior job with an operation running through it. The painting does not change. What changes is everything around it.
Occupied spaces and common areas
Staff, tenants and customers keep using the building. Which areas can be closed, for how long, and what has to stay open is established during planning and written into the sequence.
Access requirements
Keys, badges, escorts, loading access and where materials can be staged are all settled before the first day rather than worked out at the door.
Sequencing and scheduling
Suites, floors or units are sequenced so the property keeps functioning. Any scheduling requirements the building has are established during planning and built into the plan rather than discovered mid-project.
What finished means
Finished is a walkthrough, not a van pulling away.
Masking and protection come up, hardware and fixtures go back, and the space is put back the way it was found.
Then we walk it with you against the scope you approved — room by room, surface by surface. That is what writing it down that way is for: it turns “is it finished?” into a list you can check rather than a judgement call.