Most families can't move out while the inside of the house is painted. The kids still need somewhere to sleep, the dog still needs to get to the back door, and someone usually still works from the kitchen table. That is fine. Painting an occupied home is a normal job, and it goes smoothly when it is planned around the household rather than the other way round. People tend to ask first about the paint itself, and that matters, but most of what makes the week easy or hard comes down to which rooms are done when, how the air moves through the house, and where the kids and pets are while the walls are wet.
Call Jimmy — 0432 077 782Most quality interior wall paints sold now are water-based and low in VOCs, the solvents that cause that heavy fresh-paint smell. That has made a real difference for families. A bedroom painted with a modern low-VOC wall paint smells far less than the same room would have twenty years ago, and the smell clears much faster with the windows open.
Low-odour is not the same as no odour, though, and the walls are only part of the job. Doors, frames and skirtings usually take a harder enamel so they stand up to knocks, and some primers and stain blockers used over water marks or old oil-based paint smell stronger than the wall paint does. Those are the coats to plan around. In an occupied home we use low-odour products wherever the surface allows. Ask your painter which coats will smell stronger, and on which days.
The order the rooms are painted in matters more than any product. Bedrooms usually go first and early in the day, so they have the whole day to air out before anyone sleeps in them. If a child's room is being painted, it helps to have a night or two planned somewhere else in the house rather than putting them straight back into it.
The kitchen, the main bathroom and the hallway are the rooms a family cannot do without, so they are worked in short, planned stages rather than left half-finished. Doors and frames are often done last, room by room, because a freshly enamelled door has to stay open until it has firmed up, and a house full of open doors is hard to live in for long.
Fresh air does more than anything else to clear the smell and help the paint dry. Cross-ventilation works best: windows open on two sides of the house so the air moves through rather than sitting in one room. A fan pointed out a window pulls stale air out faster than one blowing around the room.
Melbourne's weather plays its part. A cold, damp day slows drying and makes people want to shut the windows, which keeps the smell in. Where the schedule allows, it is worth lining the bedrooms and the stronger-smelling coats up with drier days rather than the wettest day of the week.
Wet paint and small hands do not mix, and neither do wet skirtings and a dog's tail. The simplest rule is that the room being painted is a closed room. The working area should be kept separate, with drop sheets and tins inside it and nothing left open on a bench at the end of the day.
Pets are usually the bigger risk, because they go where they please and brush along every wall on the way. A cat that sleeps under a bed or a dog that leans on the hallway wall will find fresh paint before anyone else does. For the days the main living areas are being painted, a laundry, a back room or the yard is often the easiest place for them. If someone in the house has asthma or is sensitive to smells, tell us when we quote, so the rooms they use most are scheduled with that in mind.
How the paint goes on changes with the house. In an empty property, spraying is fast and gives a very even finish, because the whole place can be masked and cleared. In a home with furniture, people and pets, everything that is not being painted would need covering, and the overspray risk is not worth it. In occupied homes we brush and roll.
That is slower, but it keeps the job contained to one room at a time, which is exactly what a family needs. It also means rooms can be handed back progressively through the week rather than the whole house being out of action at once.
Yes, most families do. The job is staged so you keep the kitchen, a bathroom and somewhere to sleep at all times, and bedrooms are usually painted early in the day so they have time to air out before night. Tell us at the quote stage how the house is used and we plan the order of rooms around it.
Low-VOC water-based wall paints give off far less smell and fewer solvents than older paints, and they are what we use in occupied homes wherever the surface allows. It is still sensible to keep the room well ventilated and let it air out before a child sleeps in it, and to plan a night or two in another room if you can.
Keep the room being painted closed, and on the days the main living areas are painted, give pets a separate space such as the laundry, a back room or the yard. Pets brush along walls and skirtings without noticing, so the closed-door rule matters more for them than for people.
It is usually a different coat. Wall paint is low in odour, but the enamel on doors, frames and skirtings, and some primers used to seal stains, can smell stronger. Ask which days those coats go on so you can plan around them.