Interior painting and touch-ups

The jobs we paint

• A single bedroom, bathroom or hallway.
• An accent wall or a color change in one room.
• Interior doors, door frames and baseboards.
• Ceilings with water stains after the leak is fixed.
• Touch-ups over patched drywall, anchors and nail holes.
• A rental unit between tenants.

Whole-house repaints and exteriors with tall walls are outside our scope. We focus on room-sized jobs, the kind that are easy to put off because they are small.

Prep is most of the job

Paint looks only as good as the surface under it. We move furniture to the middle of the room and cover it, lay drop cloths along the walls, remove switch plates and outlet covers, and tape where a straight line matters. Nail holes and dents get filled and sanded.

Glossy surfaces get a light scuff so new paint grips. Stains from water or smoke get a stain-blocking primer first; otherwise they bleed through two coats of new paint.

Kitchens and bathrooms need a wash before painting, because cooking grease and soap film keep paint from sticking. We clean those walls with a degreaser and let them dry.

Picking a sheen

• Flat or matte: hides wall flaws best. Good for ceilings and low-traffic bedrooms.
• Eggshell: a soft glow and easier to wipe. A common choice for living rooms and halls.
• Satin: stands up to moisture and scrubbing. Good for bathrooms, kitchens and kids’ rooms.
• Semi-gloss: hard and washable. The usual choice for doors, trim and cabinets.

Higher sheens show every bump in the wall, so on old plaster or patched drywall a lower sheen looks smoother.

Matching existing paint

Touch-ups only blend when the color and sheen match and the wall has not faded much. If you have the leftover can or the paint name, bring it out. If not, we take a chip from a hidden spot to a paint store for a scan.

Even with a perfect match, a small patch on a big wall can show as a slightly different shade. Painting the wall corner to corner is the way to make it disappear, and we will tell you when that is the better choice.

How the work goes

1. Cover floors and furniture, remove plates and hardware.
2. Patch, sand and prime spots that need it.
3. Cut in edges with a brush along ceilings, corners and trim.
4. Roll walls in sections while the edges are still wet.
5. Second coat once the first is dry.
6. Pull tape, reinstall plates, clean up and walk the room with you.

How long a room takes depends on the job and the dry time; we’ll tell you after seeing photos. We use low-odor paint indoors and keep windows open where the weather allows.

Ceilings and stains

A brown ring on the ceiling is usually from an old leak. Once the leak is fixed and the drywall is dry and solid, a coat of stain-blocking primer and ceiling paint makes it vanish. If the stain is soft or sagging, the drywall needs repair first. See our drywall repair page.

Rental turnovers

Between tenants, walls collect scuffs, tape marks, picture holes and the odd crayon drawing. A turnover paint job focuses on speed and a clean, neutral finish: fill holes, spot-prime, and roll walls in a durable eggshell so the next round of scuffs wipes off. We keep a record of the color and sheen per unit so future touch-ups match.

Doors and trim

Interior doors look tired long before walls do, because hands touch them all day. Doors come off their hinges and get painted flat on sawhorses, which avoids drips and gives a smoother finish. Hardware gets removed, not taped. Trim gets a light sand between coats.

Paint and pets

Keep pets out of the room until the paint is dry to the touch. Tails and noses love fresh paint. Low-odor paint helps, but ventilation still matters.

Leftover paint

We label leftover cans with the room and date and leave them in a cool, dry spot. A small labeled jar of each color makes touch-ups easy later.

Color help without a designer

Picking a color from a two-inch chip is hard. We suggest buying sample pots of two or three choices and rolling a patch the size of a sheet of paper on two walls, one that gets direct light and one that does not.

Look at them in the morning and again at night under your own bulbs before deciding. Warm white bulbs make cool grays look muddy, and cool bulbs make beige look flat, so the bulbs in the room matter as much as the paint.

Small extras on paint day

Paint day is a good time for small fixes: tightening loose switch plates, swapping yellowed outlet covers, filling the gap above a door frame, or rehanging a curtain rod a little higher.

Photo checklist