Paint + Carpet/Tiling + HW Floors

[ecivon]

Need some advice. Over the span of just four weeks, I'd like to have the following work done in our house:

- Tile the bathrooms (carpet right now)

- Replace all of the carpeting

- Repaint all of the interior

- Re-finish the hardwood floors in our kitchen

My questions:

1. Any recommendation as to what order these should be completed? The order as listed is what makes sense to me. Should I try to arrange any of this work to take place in tandem?
2. Is it realistic to plan the above to be completed within a four week period?
3. I'm sure there are contractors that can/would sign up for two or more of these jobs. Is this a particularly good or bad idea?

I'd appreciate any advice regarding the above in general, and in particular for the three questions I've listed.

Thanks Dave

[m Ransley]

Do the floors last, you will probably end up with 4 different people. But to get it done in a month and you have not scheduled-bid anything yet , forget it, remember the good contractors are already booked over a month out, if you push it you will have 4 hacks ruining 4 jobs

[roger61611]

Two things - First, refinishing hardwood floors makes a huge mess. Second, painting before new carpet might prevent spillage on good carpet.

Also, under the carpet is it hardwoods - if so, would that be better than carpet ?

I would:

Rip out all the carpet, everywhere.

Refinish the hardwoods in the kitchen, get that out of the way. Takes

3-4 days. You can't be in the house if you use the hardest kind of poly, which you may want to use since it's a kitchen, it's toxic.

Tile the bathrooms one at a time so you have someplace to go. You can do this while the kitchen is being sanded but with the fumes - be careful.

Start painting away from the baths and kitchen.

Complete the painting.

Install carpet.

I would not use the same crew for anything. Good painters don't tile. Good glooring people don't do anything else. Etc.

HTH (fwiw)

[Banty]

Paint first, of course, so as not to endanger new flooring. (There should be no problem, but still, it's a risk you can ameliorate.) Then, with careful planning, you should be able to coordinate the rest within four weeks. You might work with a local provider of all these kinds of floorings and they'll want to coordinate things to please you.

I have a practical question, though, for you and anybody who wants a bunch of work done in the house in a specified time frame. Is it really so important? If there are delays, like I had with the delivery to the local of a carpet with a seam (they called about the delay; they did not try to come here with it), you'd want the flexibility to deal with it in the right way. You'll need to live with the flooring for a long time. Unless it's something like travelling many miles to stage an inherited house for sale, although it makes sense to coordinate things as well as you can, it's best to have in mind a plan B if there are delays which won't let the original four week plan work.

No mothers in law visiting you want to impress, I hope ;-)

Banty

[Banty]

I took his post meaning that he wants the four done in *a* span of four weeks, not necessarily in the *next* four weeks.

Banty

[dadiOH]

1. Remove carpet/tile
2. Paint

1. Refinish floor

2. Install carpet/tile

[hallerb]

I left the old carpet down till the painting was complete. My big dropcloth.

you must be careful removing the carpet

[3rd eye]

Since you're getting conflicting advice here's my two cents.

1. Tile
2. Paint- if you're painting the trim, you could cut the carpet away from the base.

2a. Does the hardwood need to be taken all the way down to bare wood? If so then sand & apply first coat. If just a light sanding & finish coat is necessary then I'd wait till last.

1. R & R carpet.
2. Finish hardwood.

Absolutely.

You may get a flooring company that would do your carpet, tile & hardwood but they'd likely be different crews. Other than that I'd get all different trades.

Line up your contractors & they will help you with who should come in what order.

[Mark Cato]

That sounds like the order I would go with. If you paint last, you're going to have to take extra precautions to keep your new carpet and floors safe. Why go through the extra hassle if you don't have to?

Carpet rip-out is a pretty quick process that can happen a day or two before the painters start. I wouldn't want work that would create dust taking place during the actual painting or refinishing, but you could quite possibly have the carpet and tile installers working at the same time.

You list the work you want to have done, but not the scale of the individual jobs. Also, there's no way we can know the size of the crews coming to work these jobs. As such, it would be tough to give you a timeline. Check with the individual contractors, but take it with a grain of salt. I'd be up front about the other work being done so all crews know to remain a bit flexible. Good luck with the projects.

mark

[bambam]

Gut it, paint it, floor it.

Depends on your local market. If you're dealing with one flooring supplier and a painter .. shouldn't be a problem. Question is "Which four weeks?" . People here are booked well ahead. Your mileage may vary.

Probably good. See above.

[ecivon]

Thanks all for the feedback, this is helpful. Just to clarify, I'll be having this work done several months from now (around August), and need to have it completed within a four week period. We won't be staying in the house at the time, so fumes etc. won't be an issue for us. In terms of scale, this is for a 2,200sf multi-level townhouse, 3BR 2.5BA.

Thanks again, Dave

[hallerb]

We won't be staying in the house at the time, so fumes etc. won't be an issue for us. In terms of scale, this is for a 2,200sf multi-level townhouse, 3BR 2.5BA.

Thanks again, Dave

I hope you will be around to supervise.like DONT go on vacation!