4.30.2006

Refinish then Paint or Paint then Refinish? That is the question.

Soon we will celebrate our two year anniversary in our house. Our floors are still not refinished, our walls still not painted. However, we are really, really hoping to be able to do all that sometime this year. I would like some opinions on the order in which others have painted the walls and refinished the floors.
Does it make more sense to paint the walls and then refinish the floors, thereby eliminating the need to wipe down the freshly painted walls and anything we may have hung on the walls?
or....
Should we have the floors refinished and then paint and hang?

Thanks for the opinions!

8 comments:

SmilingJudy said...

I once read, "paint first because you'll never get all the dust off the walls after the floors are re-finished." Okay, fine. But really, you're not going to just move all your stuff back in _without_ wiping down the walls anyway. They get pretty dusty.

I like the 'paint first' approach because I can afford to be sloppier with the paint. In one room, I painted, did the floors, then painted again because I decided I didn't like wall color. That's something to consider if you'll be changing the stain color of your floors. I don't think there's a "right" answer. Also, whether you have stained or painted trim, you will likely have to do some clean-up/touch-up to the baseboards after the floors are done, so plan on that.

Anonymous said...

I always thought you should work top to bottom - ceiling, walls, floors. We have painted nearly everything prior to sanding, b/c you can be messy and not worry about it.

smilingjudy is right - save some trim paint, you'll have to touch it up after staining the floors!

the dust made by sanding wasn't all that bad in my opinion, and a vacuum should get 99% of it off the walls.

~Mindy

BMT said...

What they said - top down. Every house we've ever lived in has had the wood floors finished last. You can always sand off that paint spot...

Jonathan said...

I am sort of in the same boat, abate I'm still a few months away. I am planning on painting first because I figure if I am sloppy at all and get any drips on the floor (I still need to paint the ceiling) it will be cleaned up during the refinishing. When we installed my parents hardwood floors and had to sand and stain, the dust wasn't really that hard to get off the walls.
By the way, being a "local" I check out your site quite frequently and keep up with your post. I enjoyed the tourist in my own town, it sort of touched home (no pun intended) as I am seeing the city in a new light since moving more downtown where previously I have lived in the burbs most my life.

Jonathan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

If you have oak flooring, I would refinish first. Oak flooring tends to make alot of dust. Heart pine flooring can be refinished with almost all of the dust going in the vaccum while sanding. Good luck!!

Andi from Newborn House

Anonymous said...

We chose to refinish then paint. Partially, that was unintentional - we were waiting for the floors to cure in our empty rooms (we did the entire main floor all at once) and it seemed to make sense to paint before we moved all the furniture back. Originally, it wasn't a project we were considering. Our experience - if you are using polyurethane on the floors and latex paint any paint spots will peel off the new floors without any effort. We didn't find the dust to be an issue either. And since we were letting the floors cure anyway, we felt more efficient.

Anonymous said...

We chose to refinish then paint. Partially, that was unintentional - we were waiting for the floors to cure in our empty rooms (we did the entire main floor all at once) and it seemed to make sense to paint before we moved all the furniture back. Originally, it wasn't a project we were considering. Our experience - if you are using polyurethane on the floors and latex paint any paint spots will peel off the new floors without any effort. We didn't find the dust to be an issue either. And since we were letting the floors cure anyway, we felt more efficient.