Refinish floors, replace carpet, paint walls - what order?

[zolotiyeruki]

Eleven years of a busy family of eight have taken a toll on the paint, carpet, and floor varnish.  We plan to take care of all three of them this summer.  What is the proper order?  I imagine that I'd want to do the carpet last, just to make sure nothing gets on it.  Is that right? Is there some other order that is more optimal?  Would it be better to do the walls before the hardwood floors, to minimize the wear on new varnish?

[Dicey]

Eleven years of a busy family of eight have taken a toll on the paint, carpet, and floor varnish.  We plan to take care of all three of them this summer.  What is the proper order?  I imagine that I'd want to do the carpet last, just to make sure nothing gets on it.  Is that right? Is there some other order that is more optimal?  Would it be better to do the walls before the hardwood floors, to minimize the wear on new varnish?

What's your time frame?

DH always says "Carpet last", but you can't varnish floors with carpet on them. Different rooms, perhaps?

[Sibley]

Sanding is going to throw dust all over. You will have to wash the walls regardless afterwards.

My general rule of thumb is top down. Paint the ceilings, then walls, then do floors (refinish before carpet). If you know you're going to pull the carpet, then you can skip drop cloths because you don't care if you drip. If you're painting trim, order can vary. I prefer to do baseboards before the walls because I'm bad at that cutting in, but am better with windows/doors.

And yes - after 11 years, it's time to paint your ceilings. It's a pain, but you will be pleasantly surprised at the difference it'll make.

[zolotiyeruki]

@Dicey - Time frame is "this summer."  I plan to hire out the hardwood floors, which are indeed separate from the rooms with carpet.  We'll have some family in town who can help paint

@Sibley - well, it's a good thing ceiling paint is cheap--we have a LOT of ceiling! Plus, I have several gallons left over from when I finished our basement a few years back.  Painting the doors and trim is included in the list, as the baseboards and shoe molding are showing at least as much wear as the walls are.  Patching various minor dings will also be part of the scope.  The existing paint is basically an off-white.  Other than the areas that will get repaired, do we need to worry about priming?

Our house was bank-owned before we bought it, and they put in what has to be the world's cheapest flat paint and carpet.  We'll be rectifying that :)  When we finished our basement, we got 55oz carpet with an 8lb pad, and it is positively glorious.

[SunnyDays]

I would go with the order Sibley suggested.  Another thing you could do (and may need to anyway if you’re replacing flooring) is to remove the baseboards before you paint them.  Then you don’t have to be as meticulous in the edging.

[Sibley]

You prime if there's a need to. Needs include:

-you're not sure what the old paint is, or its a bare surface
-the old paint is not compatible with the new paint (latex and oil don't necessarily play nice)
-you need to seal something - odors, stains, wallpaper glue, etc.
-you have reason to be concerned about poor adhesion of the paint (high gloss paint is a big one there)
-you're going over a dark color with a much lighter color, and primer helps the process
-prime areas you patched, even if you don't do the whole wall

Given you had kids, you might want to do some priming. For sure wash the walls, but if there was stuff on the walls in the past that could affect adhesion then primer is a good idea. Things like dirty handprints, marker/crayon, food splatters, etc.

If it's not much and you washed the walls well, then you're probably ok with the paint+primer combos. They do help but are not as good as a dedicated primer, so there are limits.

As for what primer to use - I get Zinsser or Kilz. They're both good brands, just make sure to get the variety that matches your needs. They are not all the same. A good primer can solve or prevent a LOT of paint problems.

[Dicey]

Just checked with my resident expert. He says do the floors first, because they should have time to cure before you cover them up to protect them. Then clean/dust everything. Next up is paint. The trend is swinging back to flat paint, but DH says with kids, low sheen is the way to go. Do not paint the baseboards before the carpet goes in, because installation scratches the crap out of baseboard. He also says you shouldn't need to prime first.

Finally, replace the carpet.

Here's his best advice: Wait until your kids are out of the house. Ha!

This pretty much lines up with what Sibley said.

[middo]

I would work from the top down.

For what it is worth, I have never primed.  Bare walls, patched walls, painted walls, I just paint over the top provided it is clean and smooth.  Expect to do a couple of coats to get a good solid colour.  Most modern paints will be good for many years without any primer.

[Dee18]

We did not prime unless making a significant color change, but did wipe down walls in bedroom and in our small kitchen washed walls with trisodium phosphate, a degreaser. 

[lthenderson]

I agree with much of what is said above, especially Sibley's advice for order. I too like to paint the ceiling, then the trim before doing the walls. I find it easier to cut in the wall up to the trim without masking versus cutting in trim to the wall, especially on baseboard where it can have a really narrow flat surface up next to the wall. I always get a nice new brush to do this versus using an old crappy brush and spending hours masking and pulling off tape when done. I think the extra cost of the brush is worth every penny with the time savings.

There are quite a bit of all in one primer and paint out now though I have never used it so can't vouch for it. As long as my walls our free of excess dirt and raw filler or drywall from repairs, I just go over it with a high quality paint and no primer. Like Sibley said though, I've painted every wall at least once so I know what paint I used before and don't have problems mixing them. My personal opinion is to not go cheap on paint. A high quality paint (I go with Duration from Sherwin Williams but there are other excellent brands) can nearly do complete coverage in one well rolled on coat of paint. Some of the big box store bands can take three or four coats to achieve the same coverage, which means a lot more paint used that sometimes equals or exceeds the cost of the amount of high quality paint. Saves a lot of time and the high quality paint tends to be a bit thicker and drips/runs less too.

Make sure you don't throw away the paint or use it up just so it isn't sitting around after you finish painting the walls and before installing carpet. I have never been able to get the carpet muscled into a room without scuffing up the paint somewhere. It is nice to have a little to touch up the scuffs after the carpet has been laid.

If you are doing multiple rooms and dust is a concern (I'm not sure if sanding the floors before varnishing is in the works), I have a suggestion that is worth every penny I paid for it. Order yourself a Zipwall system. They are essentially spring poles that will hold sheets of plastic floor to ceiling across door openings or simply to divide a room up and keep the dust contained. You can even get zipper kits to add doorways so you can leave it up for awhile and still get in and out of a room easily. A few years back I scraped off most of our popcorn ceilings and then applied a skip trowel texture on it with a mud sprayer and plastic screed, all while living in the house. It really cut down the dust in the other living areas I wasn't working on at the time.

https://www.amazon.com/ZipWall-ZipPole-Spring-Loaded-Barriers-ZP4/dp/B002RL8ODK/

[zolotiyeruki]

My hope is that we'll empty all the affected rooms of furniture (ugh, that's a *huge* project in itself), and go live for a few days at my brother's house while the floors are done.

Thank you everyone for your advice.  Here's my tentative order of operations now:
--Move all furniture out of the affected rooms
--Get the floors sanded and finished while we live at my brother's house for a few days
--Protect the floors
-----The cavalry (i.e. family) arrives  ------
--Fix all the dings in the walls
--Prime where repairs have been made
--Paint ceiling first, then baseboards, then walls
--Rip out old carpet (maybe do this before painting?)
--Do a bunch of miscellaneous stuff (screw down squeaky floors, add can lights in a room that has a carpeted room above it)
--Get new carpet in

In the process:
--Use a high-quality paint.  I have a friend in the painting business, and he's offered to let us use his contractor discount at Sherwin Williams
--I'm thinking an eggshell finish for the paint, for a combination of "looks good" and "can be scrubbed."  The flat paint we have now does NOT like scrubbing, and we still get hand prints and occasionally scribbles on the walls.

Waiting until our kids leave the house would mean waiting another decade, and I have been informed in no uncertain terms that such a delay is unacceptable :)

[Sibley]

The eggshell from Sherwin Williams is what I prefer to use on walls, but they might call it satin? I forget. It's good, and washes well.

Re the primer debate - I suspect there must be a product difference. Because if you use the paint I have available on a bare surface, then you're not going to get a good result, and it's not going to last as long. And most of the people I see who say they never use primer live outside the US. So there must be a difference in products.

Zolotiyeruki - I don't know why you're refinishing the floors first. By doing that, first, you have to wait for the floors to cure before you can work. Second, you'll be using ladders, etc, which could scuff the new finish. Third, you'll have to be really, really careful about covering the floors when you're painting. Accidents happen. If you're going to be sanding the floors anyway, then you can relax quite a bit about drips.

Definitely pull the carpet after you've done the ceilings at a minimum. I would actually suggest doing ceiling, trim, walls, then pulling carpet and touching up/finishing trim where it was covered by carpet previously. That way, you can use the carpet as a drop cloth.

Sounds like the kids aren't little. Make them help. I was painting by 10 for sure. I wouldn't have them do the ceiling because they'll fall over into the paint, but they absolutely can help with cleaning,  moving things, painting within their reach, patching/sanding small spots, etc. Painting is one of the entry level DIY skills. Get them started.

[lthenderson]

I use Sherwin Williams satin for most of our walls. It scrubs pretty well and is not shiny when getting lots of light.

I would wait to paint baseboard until after you've pulled the carpet, especially if it has a higher nap. The nap fibers tend to get in the way of the brush and in some cases into the paint on the baseboard. I would paint it after you pull the carpet and then you will definitely have to touch it up afterwards where it got abraded putting in new carpet but that is a lot easier.

I'm assuming the subfloor under the carpet isn't an old hardwood floor? If so and the occasional drip isn't a problem, I would pull it right after painting the ceiling and before painting the walls. This will halve the amount of scuffing potential you have on your walls after the new carpet is installed. If it was an old hardwood floor that might someday be finished, I would wait until the end to pull it just to give the next person an easier job.

I've done floor refinishing both ways. With proper masking and dust containment, i.e. previously mentioned zipwall system and covering over HVAC ducts and intakes, I prefer to refinish hardwood flooring last too. With hardwood flooring, I yank any baseboard (unlike carpet) before refinishing so it can be repainted out in the garage and reinstalled over the newly redone floor. It make is a lot easier sanding close to the walls, etc. without fear of dinging up the baseboard while getting the old finish removed to the point that the baseboard will cover up the difference between the old and the new. If the old baseboard comes out nice, I just label the backside and shoot it with a cordless nailer back in place. There is no cutting so it doesn't take long. Since my trim is white, I just cover up the nail holes with white caulking and call it a day. Refinishing the floor first has the advantage of getting the dirty work done and over with but comes at the cost of having to do lots of protecting when moving ladders, dropping tools, walking through a paint splotch and then leaving tracks, etc. Again if the ceiling was already painted before you redid the hardwood flooring, it would be a lot easier because you can just lay down 2 feet wide drop clothes and that is good enough to contain all the drips from painting walls and trim. The drop cloth also helps to protect the flooring from ladders as well.

At the end of the day, if I had the calvary coming on a specific day, I would maximize their labor over the order of operations that might affect my labor after they are gone. I am able to work around things carefully. I don't want to direct a calvary to work around things carefully.

[lthenderson]

Refinish the floors first to avoid damaging new paint or carpet. Then paint the walls before replacing the carpet to keep everything looking fresh and avoid paint drips on new flooring.

OP was completing this task during the summer... three years ago.

[Metalcat]

Refinish the floors first to avoid damaging new paint or carpet. Then paint the walls before replacing the carpet to keep everything looking fresh and avoid paint drips on new flooring.

OP was completing this task during the summer... three years ago.

God damn necroposts!!!

I wrote out a whole fucking reply and then saw your reply. Sonofabitch!

[Dicey]

Refinish the floors first to avoid damaging new paint or carpet. Then paint the walls before replacing the carpet to keep everything looking fresh and avoid paint drips on new flooring.

OP was completing this task during the summer... three years ago.

God damn necroposts!!!

I wrote out a whole fucking reply and then saw your reply. Sonofabitch!

Well, it wasn't a total loss. You made me laugh. Thanks, Metalcat!