We are planning to paint the interior of the house and refinish the hardwood floors. Three contractors gave us an estimates, one said we need to paint first, the other said the floors, and the third said it doesn’t matter. I am confused, why there’s no consensus? Some say refinishing the floors will cause a lot of dust on the walls, not good if we had just painted them. Any advice? Please help.
Generally if you are doing something where the walls might get banged up, you would want to do the walls last.
We are doing a room ourselves, and doing the walls then the floor, since we are lazy about taping.
It really doesnt matter IMO. Personal preference.
I think in your case I would have the floors done first, because painters are not likely to muck up the floor, whereas the floor guys might crash into the walls. The painters I know, dont even drape, and they didnt get a spot of paint anywhere, but I think they just like to live dangerously.
Refinishing floors will cause a lot of dust on the walls (and the ceiling!), but if the paint is completely dry, you can just swiffer them. However, wall-painting also causes dust if there is any sanding that needs to be done (usually by hand if you are patching holes or smoothing rough areas.) It is also true that if your drop cloth shifts, you could get a drop of paint on your newly refinished floors. That’s probably why there’s no consensus.
If I were you–and actually, this is what we did–I’d do the floors first, because that is the dustiest and nastiest job, and it takes a long time for the finish to harden. We had an antique house with painted pine floors, and oil paint takes weeks to fully cure, but even polyurethane takes a long time. Then, when the floors are completely dry, paint the walls. Just make sure everything is well covered.
Thank you. Does it matter if floors are done with oil or water based finish?
I agree with Massmom: floors first.
Our painters only wore socks in the house. Even in horrible heat, they said socks were better for the floors than bare feet. They were very careful with the newly done floors.
There was a hierarchy with the painters that I’d never known about. The better ones did the interior (and were quite proud of it), the ones who did the exterior were not as good and we had to watch them a bit more.