House Painting with the Pros: First Floor Refresh, Part 4

After the flooring was finally completed, I scheduled painters to come and paint. If you’ve read any of my painting articles before, you know that technically, I could do this myself. But it’s a lot of paint. And the job included 2 bathrooms and a kitchen with a wall I could reach the top of. Enter in the professionals.

Preparing for painters

With any paint job, preparing to paint is the hardest thing to do. This time is was no exception. Even though I had done a lot of clean up and moving items for the floor install, the counters and shelves, and other surfaces had items on them that would be in the way of the painters. So, I had to do even more cleanup–clearing my kitchen counters and area above my kitchen cabinets, removing mirrors from the bathroom walls and removing shower curtains and items from the bathroom counters. I even removed a light fixture (but more on that in a future post).

Paint Colors Used

These colors were all satin finish except for the moulding and trim, which is a high gloss finish.

Most of the First Floor and Stairwell	Alabaster SW 7008
Bathrooms and Bedroom	Ancient Marble SW6162
Dining Room	African Gray SW9162
Moulding and Trim	Basic White (No tint)

Lessons Learned

• Make sure you go over each line item in a paint quote to capture everything you want done. Thought we talked about removing the wallpaper borders, they forgot to put that cost in the quote. I didn’t discover it until the painters actually came to paint, so it added about $250 extra than what I thought it would cost.
• Have your paint colors ready before the job is scheduled. The manager wanted the paint colors the weekend before the work was to start, and the painters wanted swatches as soon as they prepped the space. Having these picked out way before the job starts was one less thing I had to worry about.
• New Paint colors will bring to light even more changes. As soon as the job was done, I noticed other things that I wanted to update one in particular, painting the stair railing. Also, the alabaster brought out the fact that the outlet covers and the outlets were actually a different color. I bought new outlet covers to match the outlets as close as possible.
• No matter how much you think you’ve cleaned, you will have to do more. There was dust everywhere from sanding. So even the items that I moved into the center of the room and covered needed to be wiped down or rinsed off.
• You will be surprised by the change color can make. The alabaster brightened up my living room and made the natural light coming in even more noticeable. The gray in the dining room modernized that room in a way that I would never have thought before. I am looking for other areas in the house to add it.

The Money

I am currently still over budget on this refresh with only the accessories left to purchase. I added two more light fixtures, which is how I under-budgeted this part of the project.

What’s next?

Next will be lighting. Subscribe to the blog and my YouTube Channel so you don’t miss a minute of the process! (This is where my whole refresh stalled over 2 inches. Stay tuned for the drama.)