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Did you paint before you moved?


BlsdMama
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We had a month between closing and moving, so we ripped up mangey carpets, refinished the hardwood floors, ripped out a plaster wall, reinsulated, and drywalled it, ripped up one hardwood floor where it had buckled in the middle and relaid it, removed some trim to jack up a header between two rooms where it was sagging, painted a couple of rooms, and repapered one.  We did it all ourselves with 3 kids and a toddler in tow - if it wasn't summer anyway it would have been Home Improvement 101. 

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Our first place we had a week to replace carpet, remove wallpaper and paint before moving in. It was great.  Our second place - the house we are in now (20 years now!) we did NOT have that luxury, and it took several YEARS before I got the chance to remove awful wallpaper, repaint, etc*.  If you can do anything before the furniture goes in, go for it!

 

* still haven't refinished the wood floors. Oh, well.

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We painted after we moved in.  We didn't have the luxury of having two places to live and paint first.  

 

It wasn't that bad to paint after moving in.  It certainly was easier than the new flooring we had to put in!

 

Dawn

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I agree with Madylubug, if you can't paint everything before you move in (I've done both and it is so much easier before you move) then do the bedrooms before hand, if you can.  Otherwise you have to deal with people sleeping with paint fumes, shuffling the sleeping arrangements and moving a lot of cumbersome furniture around, etc.  You can't put stuff on the wall right way, either, if you wait til after you move.  You can tackle the rest of the house after you move in if you have to, but the bedrooms are a pain.  If you have volunteer help, take it!  Get those bedrooms done! :)  

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Paint first!

 

You might be able to work around boxes, but beds, book cases, tables and china cabinets are a bother! Just think about how much of your furniture gets lined up along walls - all of that will be in your way if you wait til you move in to paint.

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And, if you are also replacing carpet do that after painting.  Just imagine, painting with a floor-to-floor preinstalled dropcloth.  

 

Before I moved into the current house (1700 sq. ft)

 

Before painting day,

I had filled the little holes in the walls,

Painted a really good stain covering layer on, maybe called Zap? where needed

Put newspaper over the windows.

Covered all light fixtures.

Rented a scaffolding thing for the vaulted living room

Had 5 gallon buckets of white paint on hand, and paint for the three colored bedrooms.  

My parents came over with a paint sprayer and we painted everywhere including the ceilings except for the closets and the laundry room.  

We were done by 2pm, and ate lunch

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There isn't a huge amount.... not terrible. It would be the living room, and two to three bedrooms. What kind of a timeline am I looking at? We've been living with family for five months and I'm anxious to be in our own space and unpacked!! Can't decide how badly I want those rooms painted? And Ana's graduation party in three weeks....

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Paint first!

 

You might be able to work around boxes, but beds, book cases, tables and china cabinets are a bother! Just think about how much of your furniture gets lined up along walls - all of that will be in your way if you wait til you move in to paint.

You mean like the piano? ;)

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And, if you are also replacing carpet do that after painting. Just imagine, painting with a floor-to-floor preinstalled dropcloth.

 

Just a note on this from a bad experience - after hiring out a whole house painting and then having the carpet replaced - the carpet layers left major scuff marks all over the freshly painted walls. We had followed the logic above, but the painter - who had to come back to fix things - told us that professional painters are very good at not dropping on the carpet and are liable for the cleanup if they do.

 

So.... If you're having carpet installed after doing the painting, talk to the flooring folks about them taking care not to scuff the walls. Before and after pics also help when you have to get each service provider to take responsibility for what they messed up.

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There isn't a huge amount.... not terrible. It would be the living room, and two to three bedrooms. What kind of a timeline am I looking at? We've been living with family for five months and I'm anxious to be in our own space and unpacked!! Can't decide how badly I want those rooms painted? And Ana's graduation party in three weeks....

 

Depends on the rooms and the skill of your help! We repainted ceilings, walls, and trim/doors. That takes longer because you have to wait for everything to dry in between, and we weren't skilled enough to not need tape. (Frog tape! Awesome stuff.) Professional painters could knock that out in well under a day.

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There isn't a huge amount.... not terrible. It would be the living room, and two to three bedrooms. What kind of a timeline am I looking at? We've been living with family for five months and I'm anxious to be in our own space and unpacked!! Can't decide how badly I want those rooms painted? And Ana's graduation party in three weeks....

I agree with Mandylubug you might look at hiring a professional painter.  They could easily (if they know what they are doing) knock that out in a couple of days or less, depending on if they are doing the ceiling and trim, too, and what the square footage and layout is.  Ceilings are harder and take longer.  Same with trim.  

 

I used to paint all our rooms myself.  No big issue if there is no furniture to contend with and I got pretty efficient at it.  But if you are concerned about the time frame and you can find someone reliable and professional that doesn't cost too much I would hire out.

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I agree with Mandylubug you might look at hiring a professional painter. They could easily (if they know what they are doing) knock that out in a couple of days or less, depending on if they are doing the ceiling and trim, too, and what the square footage and layout is. Ceilings are harder and take longer. Same with trim.

 

I used to paint all our rooms myself. No big issue if there is no furniture to contend with and I got pretty efficient at it. But if you are concerned about the time frame and you can find someone reliable and professional that doesn't cost too much I would hire out.

Agreed. My husband's gift to me after enduring a number of corporate relocations (and repainting many of the new houses myself) was the instruction to call someone to do my painting for me from now on. I still do bedrooms, if I just want to freshen one up, but if there's more than one room, or a bathroom involved, I've got a guy for that. Worth every penny.
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