New house -- what to do first

[mlktwins]

DH and I had our home inspection today on our new (used) home. We have wood floors on the main floor that are pretty scratched up from the dog that lived in the house before us. Would you re-do the floors first and then paint (everything needs to be repainted) or paint and then re-do the floors? DH and I do not share the same opinion so I thought I would ask the hive :D!

 

Thanks much!

[Sandra in FL]

Paint first.

[TheCoffeeChick]

Paint first.

 

:iagree: That way you won't be heartbroken if any of the paint should accidentally get on the floor.

[fhjmom]

What are you doing to the floors? Are you going to sand and re-stain?

 

My painter-DH says that he would sand & re-stain floors before painting walls b/c it is hard to get all the dust off newly painted walls and touch-ups show worse if you paint before, sand, then touch-up. Of course you would want to make sure you really protect the floors well when painting.

 

If you are just resealing the floors, he says to paint first then do the floors.

[Melinda in VT]

Paint first, assuming you can either do all of the work before you move in or none of it before you move in.

 

If you can do one or the other before you move in but not both, I'd do the flooring first. Hardwood is easier to protect than carpet, and there's a lot less furniture moving involved in painting than in flooring.

[Dandelion]

My painter-DH says that he would sand & re-stain floors before painting walls b/c it is hard to get all the dust off newly painted walls and touch-ups show worse if you paint before, sand, then touch-up. Of course you would want to make sure you really protect the floors well when painting.

 

 

I would recommend this as well. We had the hardwoods on our main level redone and there was dust EVERYWHERE. Much better to do the floors first, clean up the dust, and then paint. Even if you do drip a little bit of paint on your floor, it's so easy to clean up off of hardwoods.

[Beach Mom]

I would recommend this as well. We had the hardwoods on our main level redone and there was dust EVERYWHERE. Much better to do the floors first, clean up the dust, and then paint. Even if you do drip a little bit of paint on your floor, it's so easy to clean up off of hardwoods.

:iagree:This is the order we did them at our house for this reason. I was SO paranoid about the painters and the new hardwood floors, but the truth is the floor guys did nick a few walls :glare:, and any paint issues came right up off the floors.

[Perry]

What are you doing to the floors? Are you going to sand and re-stain?

 

My painter-DH says that he would sand & re-stain floors before painting walls b/c it is hard to get all the dust off newly painted walls and touch-ups show worse if you paint before, sand, then touch-up. Of course you would want to make sure you really protect the floors well when painting.

 

If you are just resealing the floors, he says to paint first then do the floors.

:iagree:

 

We just had the floors redone, and we painted first. It was a mistake.

[hornblower]

I would use the Mr Sandless or similar floor refinish process & you'd have time for both. Mr Sandless can do it in one day.

[Trivium Academy]

Paint everything first then floors. Congratulations!!!!

[Harriet Vane]

What are you doing to the floors? Are you going to sand and re-stain?

 

My painter-DH says that he would sand & re-stain floors before painting walls b/c it is hard to get all the dust off newly painted walls and touch-ups show worse if you paint before, sand, then touch-up. Of course you would want to make sure you really protect the floors well when painting.

 

If you are just resealing the floors, he says to paint first then do the floors.

 

:iagree:

[mlktwins]

What are you doing to the floors? Are you going to sand and re-stain?

 

 

We know we are sanding and probably re-staining (I think we will have to). We are also installing new hardwood on the second floor. We are going to look into sandless refinishing also, but I don't know much about it yet :-). I was worried about the sand and freshly painted walls and also any dings the flooring people may accidently put in the walls. Hubby is worried about getting paint on the newly finished floors.

 

We are lucky in that we can do both before we move in.

[abbeyej]

Floors first. Do them before you move in. ... While it's *nice* to get the painting done before you move in, it's possible to paint room-by-room while you're living in a house -- doing all of the floors once you live in a house is a huge undertaking.

[Luckymama]

Floors first. We moved into a foreclosure that needed a lot of work. We did the walls (and a bunch of other things, including carpet upstairs) before laying hardwood floors downstairs. I wish we could have afforded the floors first.

[GWOB]

Always work top to bottom. I will second (third, eighth) the recommendation to paint first. No matter how many precautions you take, if you are anywhere mear as clumsy as I am, you will get something on the floor.

 

And congrats! New houses are fun, if tiring.

[Garga]

If what the other posters are saying is true, you will need to do the floors first, as the dust will ruin the paint on the walls.

 

I have hardwood floors and the paint comes up very easily from them.

[Starr]

You are going to get dizzy reading these posts; wall, floors, walls, floors...lol We had all of our old wood floors sanded and stained. The dust was amazing!

[MBM]

I would refinish the floors first. We used sandless twice but still had some dust. Also, the workers operating the sanding machine sometimes bump into the walls either midlevel with the handles or way down below (less of a problem because molding, which I'm assuming will be removed, should cover that).

 

I'm assuming you're not going to be living in the house when the polyurethane is applied. The smell will knock you out for up to a week unless you're using something low VOC.

 

Be sure the painters use a huge tarp carefully laid out over the entire floor. We also rolled out a heavy craft paper along the edges of the walls under the tarp. No drips or splatters anywhere. Paint can also smell bad for awhile.

[mlktwins]

I'm guessing we will do the floors first (which was my first thought) and then do the paint. We do plan to protect the floors really well -- thick craft paper and tarps. We are hiring someone to do the foyer and stairwells, family room and kitchen. We will probably do the rest.

 

We are not selling or renting our current house so we are going to take our time and fix everything we want to fix before we move. I can't imagine trying to fix up the house with 5 year old twin boys running around like crazy while we are working :D. I also want to get our school room done so we are set to continue easily once we move.

 

Thanks everyone for all your great advice.

[Jan in SC]

Fix the floors first! Always start at the bottom and work to the top. It is not hard to remove paint from wood floors, but almost impossible to remove the dust form painted walls!