What to do before the painters arrive
10 August 2026 · 3 min read
An hour of preparation on your side saves hours on the invoice and prevents most of the things that go wrong on a domestic job.
Painters price for the work they expect. Anything they have to do that was not in the quote either becomes a variation or eats into the time available for the actual painting. Most of it takes you an hour.
Two weeks before
**Confirm the colours in writing.** Brand, product, colour name and code, and which surface each goes on. Changing your mind on the first morning is the most common cause of delay.
**Confirm the scope.** Re-read the quote and check it matches what you are picturing. Ceilings, robe interiors, the inside of the front door, the garage — these are the ones that get assumed.
**Ask about access.** Where will they park, where can they set up, is there a tap and a power point they can use, and do they need a key or a code.
**Book the pets somewhere** if the job is disruptive, or plan how you will keep them contained.
The week before
**Move what you can.** Anything breakable, valuable or irreplaceable should be out of the room entirely, not pushed to the middle. Painters will move heavy furniture and cover it, but ornaments, electronics and artwork are your job.
**Take down curtains and blinds.** And the hardware if it is being painted around. This is fiddly, slow work and doing it yourself saves real time.
**Remove wall hangings, mirrors and shelving.** Including the fixings, if you do not want the holes back.
**Clear the walls' perimeter.** A metre of clear space around every wall being painted, ideally more.
**Empty built-in robes** if the interiors are being painted.
Outside
**Trim back plants** touching the walls. Painters will not prune your garden and they cannot paint behind a hedge.
**Move pots, furniture and the barbecue** away from the walls.
**Clear the driveway** if they need access for a vehicle or a platform.
**Point out the sprinklers** and turn off the reticulation for the duration. An irrigation cycle onto a freshly painted wall at 5am is a genuinely common problem.
The night before
**Do the last of the moving.**
**Point out anything you are worried about** — the wobbly gate, the loose paver, the cracked pane, the dog that gets out.
**Leave the tap and power on.**
**Have somewhere for the family to be.** An occupied house being painted is disruptive, and it is worse if you are working from home in a room they need.
Tell them about the things that are already broken
The cracked tile, the dented skirting, the door that does not shut. Point these out before work starts. It protects both parties, and it is much easier than a conversation at the end about whether something was already like that.
Things people forget
- Alarm codes, and whether the alarm needs disabling
- Where the water shut-off is
- Whether there is asbestos anywhere on a pre-1990 house
- That the neighbour parks in the shared driveway
- Strata rules about working hours, if you are in a unit
- That the room being painted contains the modem
During the job
**Do a walk-through at the end of the first day.** Look at the preparation before it is covered by paint. This is the moment to raise anything, not on the last day.
**Keep out of active rooms.** Wet paint, ladders and tools.
**Save the questions for one conversation a day** rather than interrupting continuously. Most crews are happy to run through progress at the end of the day.
At the end
Walk the job properly, in daylight, before final payment. From a metre away and then from across the room. Check the cut lines at ceilings and skirtings, coverage over repairs, sheen consistency, and overspray on hardware, glass and floors.
Write the list. Agree a date. Then pay.