Covering and moving furniture is part of the job and it is on your quotation as a line. You are not expected to empty the flat. But there is a short list of things that go better if you handle them yourself, and a couple of decisions worth making before day one rather than during it.
What we do
- Sheet the floors, wall to wall, in every room being worked on.
- Move furniture to the centre of the room and cover it.
- Mask switch plates, sockets, skirting, door frames and window frames.
- Take down curtain rods and light fittings where they are in the way, and put them back.
- Clear the site and return the furniture at the end of each day, so you can use the room that night.
What genuinely helps if you do it
Take down anything you would be upset to lose
Photographs, mirrors, art, the clock your grandmother gave you. We handle them carefully; the point is that nobody should have to handle them at all. Wall hangings also leave hooks and nail holes, and it is much better to fill those with the rest of the wall than to touch them up afterwards.
Empty the wardrobe tops and open shelving
The place dust ends up, and the awkward place to work around. Clearing them takes ten minutes and saves an hour of careful shuffling.
Decide about the fragile and the electronic
Televisions, computers, an aquarium, a piano. Tell us on the visit rather than on the morning — sometimes the answer is a different order of work, and that is a decision for the schedule, not for a doorway conversation at 9 am.
Plan for the smell
Modern low-VOC emulsions are dramatically better than they were, but a freshly painted room still has an odour for a day or so. If somebody in the house is asthmatic, pregnant, very young or very old, plan which rooms are done when, so there is always a slept-in room that has had a night to air.
Sort out water, power and parking
The three things that stop a day dead:
- A working tap and a bucket's worth of water.
- Power at a socket in each room — mechanical sanding needs it.
- A word with the society office about parking, the service lift and working hours. RWA rules vary and finding out at 9 am costs you the morning.
Keep pets somewhere else
Wet paint, open doors, unfamiliar people and a lot of movement. Better for everyone, the animal most of all.
Two decisions to make before day one
Confirm the colours on the actual wall. A shade card in a showroom and the same shade on your wall at 7 pm are not the same colour. Ask for sample patches, live with them for a day, and confirm before the paint is bought — changing your mind afterwards is a real cost for everyone.
Agree the room order. Which rooms are done on which days decides where you sleep all week. It takes two minutes to plan and it is the single thing that most affects how the week feels.
On the day
Your partner's name, photograph and rating are in the app before they arrive. Read them the four-digit start code when they begin — and keep the completion code to yourself until the work is done and you are happy with it. That is what it is for.
