How to Prepare Your Home for Professional Painting: A Homeowner's Checklist
A homeowner checklist to prepare your property before painters arrive and keep the project on track.
Having professional painters come into your home is genuinely exciting — the transformation that unfolds over a few days can be remarkable. But a little preparation before the team arrives makes a significant difference to how smoothly the job goes, how quickly it's completed, and how good the final result looks. This practical checklist covers exactly how to prepare your home for painters and what to do before painters arrive.
Clear the Room Properly
The single most helpful thing you can do before a painting team arrives is to clear the room as thoroughly as possible. This means removing small furniture, ornaments, plants, books, and anything else that could get in the way or be damaged by paint splatter, dust from sanding, or simply the movement of people and equipment.
For larger furniture — sofas, wardrobes, beds — move them to the centre of the room if they can't be removed entirely. A professional team will protect everything with dust sheets, but the more space we have to work, the better the access to walls and skirting boards, and the cleaner the result.
In kitchens, clear the worktops completely. In bathrooms, remove toiletries, towels, and bathroom accessories. The less there is to work around, the faster and cleaner the job.
Take Down Wall Fixtures and Artwork
Remove pictures, mirrors, clocks, and wall hangings before the team arrives. This gives us clean wall access and ensures nothing gets accidentally damaged. If you're unsure whether to remove a heavy mirror, let us know in advance and we'll advise.
Switch plates and socket covers can usually be removed or simply masked by the decorating team — but if you're happy to remove them beforehand, it saves a little time. The same applies to curtain poles and blinds: if they're easily removable, take them down. If they're complicated to refit, we can work around them with careful masking.
Any wall-mounted shelving that can be removed should be, particularly if it's attached to the wall we're painting. Painting around fixed shelving always results in a compromise — removing it allows a seamless finish.
Protect Irreplaceable Items
We take extensive precautions with floor protection, masking, and dust sheets. However, we always advise customers to move genuinely irreplaceable items — family photographs, valuable antiques, sentimental objects — to a completely different room or area of the house during painting. Professional teams are careful, but accidents are always a possibility in any active work environment.
The same applies to electronics. Large TVs that can't be moved should be covered with our dust sheets, but any smaller electronics — laptops, tablets, gaming consoles — are better moved to another room entirely.
Pets and Children
This is often overlooked but genuinely important. Paint fumes, even with modern low-VOC formulations, are not ideal for young children or pets to be exposed to for extended periods. If possible, arrange for children to be out of the house during the most intensive painting days.
Pets present a different challenge. Cats in particular are notorious for walking through paint trays, leaving prints on freshly painted surfaces, or brushing against wet walls. Dogs can be unsettled by the presence of strangers in the house. Arranging for pets to be kept in a separate room or with a neighbour during painting days is strongly recommended for everyone's sanity.
What Paez Brothers Handles for You
While your preparation makes our job easier, there's plenty we take full responsibility for:
- Floor protection — we lay heavy-duty dust sheets and/or protective floor film on all flooring in the work area
- Masking — all skirting boards, ceiling lines, architraves, and fixed fixtures are carefully masked before any paint goes on
- Dust sheets on furniture — anything remaining in the room is covered with dust sheets
- Wall preparation — filling cracks, sanding, spot-priming where needed (discussed at quote stage)
- Daily tidy — we keep the work area as clean as possible throughout the job
- End-of-job clean-up — all dust sheets removed, masking taken off, and the space left clean and ready to reuse
Communication with the Team
Before work begins, take five minutes to walk through the job with whoever is leading the team. Point out any areas of particular concern — a hairline crack you've noticed, a patch where moisture has appeared, a section of wallpaper that needs to come down first. The more information we have upfront, the better we can plan the work and avoid surprises mid-job.
If you have specific preferences — the order in which rooms are done, times when you need access to a particular room, or a hard deadline for completion — mention these at the start. We'll plan around your schedule wherever possible.
Don't feel you need to stay home throughout the job. Most customers are at work during painting days and simply leave us a key. We're fully insured, reliable, and will lock up carefully when we leave each evening.
Access and Parking
In East Ham and across East London, parking can be a consideration. Let us know in advance if there's a residents' bay outside your property or if we'll need a visitor's permit to park nearby. We'll always be respectful of your neighbours and will arrange parking sensibly.
If we're painting upper floors or exterior areas that require ladders, make sure the side gate or relevant access routes are unlocked on our first morning.
On the Morning of Day One
A clear room, the furniture in the centre, pictures and switches removed, pets arranged — that's all we need from you. The rest is our job. We'll arrive at the agreed time, check in with you briefly, and get to work. By the end of the first day, you'll already be able to see the transformation beginning.
Ready to get started? Request your free painting quote from Paez Brothers — your local East London painters and decorators. We'll walk you through exactly what to expect from start to finish.
