Painting is mostly not painting.
On a typical room, applying finish coats accounts for about two hours of a full day on site. The other six hours are protection, preparation, priming and inspection, and they are what determine whether the wall still looks right in five years.
- 01
45–60 minutes
Walkthrough
We measure every room, read the repair history in the walls, and swab-test pre-2005 trim for oil.
- Room-by-room measurement, not a square-footage guess
- Substrate assessment, plaster, drywall, previous repairs
- Alcohol swab test on pre-2005 trim to identify oil-based finishes
- Ceiling texture and building age noted for asbestos protocol
- Access and height assessment for scaffold or ladder-jack requirements
- 02
Within 48 hours
Written finish specification
A document, not a number, every surface, its coats, its primer, its sheen. You approve it first.
- Surface-by-surface schedule with coat counts
- Primer decisions stated with the reason for each
- Sheen assignment per room based on how you use it
- Explicit exclusions so nothing is assumed
- Fixed price, not an hourly estimate
- 03
First 1–2 hours on site
Protection
Floors covered, hardware off, doorways zipped. Rooms we are not painting get sealed, not watched.
- Full floor protection, not spot drop sheets
- Switch plates, vent covers and hardware removed
- Containment at doorways to adjacent rooms
- Furniture centred and covered, or moved where practical
- 04
The four hours that decide the job
Prep
Fill, sand, vacuum, spot-prime, every wall. Live cracks get taped, not filled, or they reopen in February.
- Fill and sand to 150–180 grit, vacuum rather than wipe
- Movement cracks cut out and reinforced with tape
- Nail pops re-fastened to the stud before filling
- Trim de-glossed mechanically or chemically
- Caulking of trim-to-wall joints and open seams
- 05
Same day as prep
Prime where it matters
Stains, knots, bare drywall and big colour changes get primed. Sound walls do not, and we say so.
- Stain-blocking primer selected by the stain type
- Bonding primer over oil-based or high-sheen existing finishes
- Full-surface sealer on bare drywall and after wallpaper removal
- No decorative priming billed as an extra coat
- 06
Bulk of the schedule
Two full coats
Wet edge maintained throughout. Second coat only after the first has cured, a coat and a half is not two.
- Wet-edge maintained between cutting and rolling
- Full recoat window observed, no compressed schedules
- Consistent product and batch throughout each visual plane
- Trim sprayed or hand-brushed, whichever you specified
- 07
Final 60 minutes
Punch list, with you in the room
We walk it with a raking light, overhead light flatters a wall, raking light tells the truth. Fixes happen that day.
- Raking-light inspection room by room
- Everything you flag corrected before we leave
- Leftover paint labelled by room and sheen
- Written product record for future touch-ups
- Final clean and full debris removal
The four hours that decide the job.
If you take one thing from this page, take this: preparation is not the boring part before the real work. It is the work. Roller stipple showing through under a window, a patched nail hole flashing dull against eggshell, trim peeling off in strips the first time a vacuum hits it, every one of those is decided during prep, and none of them is visible on the day.
It is also the easiest place for a contractor to save money invisibly. Filling only the holes you can see rather than every wall. Skipping the alcohol swab on pre-2005 trim. Recoating before the first coat has cured because the schedule is tight. All three save hours, all three look identical on handover day, and all three are why the job fails within eighteen months.
Which is precisely why we put the prep standard in writing before you commit. It is the part you cannot inspect afterwards, so it has to be the part you agreed to beforehand.
Tell us what needs painting
Free walkthrough, a fixed written quote, and no obligation to go ahead.
- 1,000+ homes painted
- Free walkthroughs
- Fixed written quotes
- Serving Toronto and the GTA