Paint or finish floors first?

[szeik]

We are in the end stages of a construction project and one of the rooms is a small den about 11' x 9' with a small closet, 2 windows, 1 door into the hallway. It will be our TV room when it is finished with a nice flat screen going up on the wall.

We had new oak flooring installed and I am wondering if I should have the floor finished first and then paint, or paint first and then do the floor.

I did some research online and it seems like there are arguments for both ways of doing it and it is really an either or situation.

My gut feel is to do the floor first because the dust will get all over the paint. It's a small room and the painter can cover up the floor with a tarp or even cardboard to really protect it well.

We are not doing any staining of the trim so there is no issue with that. The trim will be painted with a semi-gloss paint.

I would appreciate your opinions on which to do first and why.

Thanks in advance.

[Mayayana]

wrote

| We had new oak flooring installed and I am wondering if I should have the floor finished first and then paint, or paint first and then do the floor. |

Ask the painter. There may be dust from the floor sanding, depending on how they do it. Also, there may be marks made on the baseboards. On the other hand, the painting is easier if done first. I like to paint afterward and be careful, or if possible, paint all but the last coat before sanding and then go in to finish up. But the sanders are likely to tell you to have the painting done first, because they don't want *their* work messed up. :)

[Vic Smith]

Do the floor first. It can be easily protected from paint. The sander will probably mar painted trim, and floor refinishers can easily splash some floor finish on your trim.

[dpb]

On 09/16/2016 8:44 AM, Vic Smith wrote: ...

+1

Plus, if it's protected from heavy traffic abuse, a little paint splatter can be cleaned up any way; not so much stain off paint.

If the trim is being painted, one consideration would be to leave baseboard off until floor is done (if it's not already installed, anyways).

[DerbyDad03]

My parents just had their house painted and the floors refinished. They painted first, not because of any plan of attack, but in fact because they had not planned on doing the floors.

The only thing I can tell you is that they had to wipe down the walls, trim, closet doors, etc. after the floors were done. It was easy to tell that the wiping was required because Dad could see where the dust covered the bottom 1 foot+ of every door. He said he couldn't see the dust on the walls, but it sure showed up on the rags.

There was no damage to the freshly painted trim that I know off, but I won't swear to that. I can tell you that I did not hear that as a complaint when they were talking about the dust. I assume that it would have come up if Dad had had to call the painter (or floor guy) back.

[clare]

A lot easier to clean up any mess from painting on a finished floor, and more danger of damaging the finished wall or baseboard when refinishing the floor - I'd do the floors first - most definitely.

[TomR]

You already know the answer. Refinish the floor first for all of the reasons that everyone else stated.

If you weren't "refinishing" (sanding, staining, and polyurethaning) the floors -- and instead you were putting down a new floor of any type (that didn't require "refinishing"), then doing the floors last would probably make sense. But, for what you are doing ("refinishing"), do the floor first.