What To Complete First - The Floors Or Walls

Do you feel inspired and motivated for some home improvement projects? If the urge to make a change we highly encourage you to put all your energy and time into initiating and conducting such a great project. Do not be afraid to follow some big plans and have some big and bold goals. Be sure to prioritise, but do not be afraid to go for some complete makeover of all the boring wall colours or by getting rid of the old, dusty carpet. Go for all this at once and finally enjoy your home the way you like it. And when we encourage you to start all at once we mean going big and not procrastinating, but not painting your walls and having your wooden floor installed all at the same time. Why? Today we are about to dive into further depths of the topic and try to find out what the best approach is.

The Wood Floor Installation First

Let’s say that you are highly excited to have your new and remarkable hardwood flooring already installed and you cannot wait a minute more, so you plan the fitting service first. The most important thing you have to keep in mind if you start such a project on your own is making sure that your new floor is the same height and thickness as your previous one. It will be awful to find an inch of a gap between the newly installed floorboards and the walls, for example.

Now while an expansion gap is a necessity to be left along the installation process and between the walls and the floorboards to allow some space for the floor to expand when moisture and humidity hit it, the expansion gap is a really small one that can be easily covered with the skirting boards next. We are talking about a bit more serious and larger gap that cannot be covered either camouflaged in any other way. Let us remind you that paint there will be most certainly a different colour or at least a few shades darker.

Furthermore, once you start lifting your old flooring in order for your new one to be installed, remember that if you decide to have your walls painted before laying the floor, you can cause some serious damaged to the freshly applied and dried coats of paint by removing all skirting and baseboards which are required for the wooden floor to be properly fitted. That's why our qualified fitters use high-quality masking tape to guarantee wall protection in such projects.

Painting The Walls First

Besides the fact that throughout the floor installation process you can be left with some scuffs and dents on your newly painted walls that will then make you do some further touchups, you need to consider the fact that not all wooden floorboards come ready to install. If you decide to purchase an unfinished wooden floor, then you will require sanding and finishing it after fitting it down. Adding a few coats of protective and preserving finishing product is a must for every unfinished wooden floor and sanding is highly recommended beforehand, to open wood’s pores for the finishing product to absorb better as well as for removing all finer and smaller imperfections that might be caused during the transportation of the materials.

With sanding here comes the sawdust. Although the fact that modern sanding machines are made to collect the main quantity of sawdust created during sanding, there is still a small chunk of dust that can stick to your freshly painted walls, especially if they are not completely dry. Furthermore, do not underestimate the fact that sanding machines are usually big and chunky and can bump into the wall by accident and leave scuffs and dents, which can also happen accidentally throughout the installation process itself.

On the other hand, if you consider painting your walls first, there won’t be any need to be extra cautious not to damage and stain your floor while doing it. Finding yourself in need of refinishing and removing paint stains from your newly fitted wooden floor is truly something you would prefer to skip the experience of.