Should I Do The Walls or Floors First?

Developing an orderly process is crucial in home remodeling. When you get the process right, things work smoothly. Your work remains clean and undamaged. When you get the process wrong, your current work is at risk of damaging your previous work.

For some projects, it is obvious that one thing must happen before the other thing. Yet what about other processes that seem like a close call?

Refinishing or laying floors and interior painting are two home remodeling and building projects that usually happen around the same time. When scheduling, should you paint the walls before or after refinishing or laying the floors?

Floors First

Floors define the look of the room; walls should follow
Paint is moderately easy to clean off of a well-finished floor
Dust from floor sanding will not collect on newly painted walls

Refinishing or Laying Floors Before Painting Walls

Pros

Easier to match the wall color to the floor than the opposite.
Damage to walls from floor sander is easier to patch and paint over than the opposite.
Dust from floor sanding will not damage newly painted walls.

Consider the matter of appearance. Which surface’s appearance is more permanent: floor or walls? Wall color can be changed over the course of a weekend. But it’s more difficult to re-stain a floor to change its color to coordinate with the wall color.

When you run a floor sander around a room, there is the possibility of scuffing up newly painted walls. Even though you will have removed the baseboards, enough activity happens that you might scrape or gouge your perfectly painted walls.

Paint drips are a major concern. If you drip on a fully finished, sealed floor, as long as you get to the drip within a few seconds, it’s almost like the drip never happened.

Sanding floors creates a huge amount of dust. This dust settles not only on horizontal surfaces but clings to vertical surfaces such as walls.

Which Is Best for You?

The final decision, of course, depends on your situation, as well as your likes and dislikes. Floor finishing is semi-permanent. Stained flooring retains its color for a long time, and it’s difficult to sand it all out. The floor will have a certain look, whether glossy or semi-glossy, or a certain hue, and the look of the walls should follow from there.

Paint drips are a valid concern, whether you have previously finished the floor or not. The best way to make sure that your flooring stays clean is to avoid spilling paint on it in the first place.

As a company that has been serving in this sector since 1998 and had the chance to work with many customers, our advice to you, our valued customers, would be to THE FLOORING FIRST.

If you have any questions, our expert team will be happy to answer your questions.