Which first - Painting Interior Walls or Sand/Polish Wooden Floors?

I've recently moved into a PPOR and am looking at renovating the house over the next few months.

The existing property has a variety of "features" including textured feature walls, a paint scheme comprised of different shades of blue and green, 3 different styles of carpets and sections of floating floorboards. The carpet/floating floorboards (and tiles in the kitchen) appear to have been installed on top of hard wood floorboards. The hard wood floorboards also look (at least from under the house and the parts that I've pulled up) to be in really good condition.

My plan at the moment is to sand back the textured feature walls and repaint the interiors; as well as pulling up the carpets and then sanding/staining/polishing the existing hard wood flooring. However, I'm hearing conflicting opinions on which is the best order:

• If I paint the walls first - I can start prepping the walls and painting tomorrow, but it seems the main positive is that any drips/spills will be able to be removed during the floor sanding process; or
• If I sand/polish the floors first - there might be a 2 month wait until the contractors are available, the dust from the sanding can attach to the paint and effect the finish, plus you have to clean all the walls before painting and then again after the sanding is finished.

I would love to hear any advice or previous experience in completion of these type of works from any of the forum members.

 

This could be one of those 'no right answer' things. I reckon if painting the walls first means you can start prepping now and that fits in with your life, do it. Maybe prep and undercoat everything and leave the top coat till after the floors have been done. Its often the prep that takes longest. I would leave the carpet down, too, while you're prepping and undercoating.

 

tough choices... im no expert but this is what i would do..
Do the messy ones first. but as stated it will take a while to get this started. So I would do what I can to complete the little jobs first. Do the prepping of the walls and leave the last coat after sanding. don't they have some type of vacuum that they use to prevent this from being too messy?

 

Floors last for me. Don't want drips on a beautiful new floor, and if the floor not going to be done for ages the dust won't stick in the paint. It'll just need a wipe.

 

There was another thread on this - we have always painted before sanding.

Was surprised when it came up that it was about 50 : 50 the advocates for each order.

We take the approach "treat the sanded finish like carpet" and you would not lay carpet and then have painters and other trades trudging through the house.

 

Sand last but still lay down plastic etc on floor.
Exception : Skirtings. Hand paint after sanding floor has been completed. The sander will mark them no matter what.

 

The sanders are pretty good at catching the dust these days (apparently) and it's really easy to wipe it off the newly painted walls anyway - especially if you use wash and wear.
In my unit I got the flors done first because I couldn't wait. It was a pain wiping drios and marks off the floor but it wasn't that difficult. Have done walls before floors this time - except skirting boards.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone!
Looks like the painting first is the winner - except for the skirting boards...

 

I would paint first - but pretty sure all my tradie friends advised against it.

Cheers

Jamie

 

I painted first, but I'm a REALLY messy painter! Did have to touch up the skirting boards after sanding a lot tho. And yes, lots of dust!

 

In the past I have always painted first then done the floors. Have fun renovating the PPOR.

 

This well known renovator agrees with your decision too Steps 13 and 16.

 

What about Sand and Prep Wall and sand and prep the floors, then clean and put drop sheets down, paint wall and skirting and then have the floor guy come back and coat the floor.?

 

Walls first
They sand floors with vacs anyhow ✌️

 

I always work my way down from top to bottom. Ensure roof is water tight, then electrical, then ceiling paint, then walls, then flooring last.

A tip I learned a few years ago now is to paint trims before walls. Far easier to cut in walls against trim than trying to cut in trim against walls especially around architraves/windows etc. And acrylic paint overspill wipes off oil trim much easier than oil trim wipes off acrylic.

 

I have tried both when tiling and repainting, painting first means you will have to touch up many areas after flooring work finished. I will now always paint last. Dropping on tiles is fixed easily so slightly different context.