How to Speed Up a Home Remodel — Without Cutting Corners

We get called in on a lot of homes mid-remodel. Sometimes it's because the original contractor left, sometimes the homeowner started a DIY project that got bigger than expected, and sometimes we're brought in right as the drywall is going up and the floors are about to land. Over the years I've noticed the same things slow down every remodel, and most of them have nothing to do with the actual work — they have to do with decisions and sequencing.

Pick Your Colors and Finishes Before Anyone Shows Up

This one costs more time than anything else. A painting crew shows up on Monday morning and the homeowner still hasn't decided on the wall color. We can't start. Or we start the master bedroom and then at 2 PM the client changes the color after seeing it on the wall. Now we're buying different paint, repainting what we did, and the schedule is a day behind.

Pick your colors before the crew comes. Not from a chip card — put real sample paint on the actual wall and look at it in the morning light and the evening light. The same color looks completely different in different lighting, and a color that looks great on a chip card can look wrong on a full wall. Spend the $5 on a sample quart. It saves everyone time.

Same goes for finish selection, sheen level, and trim color. Decide everything before day one of painting.

Do Rooms in the Right Order

The order matters more than most people realize. Paint goes on after drywall is done and taped, but before trim is installed. That way you can paint right up to the wall and floor without taping trim — the trim covers the edge when it gets installed. If trim goes in first and then you paint, you're taping everything, which is slower.

Flooring goes in after painting. Paint splatters, even with drop cloths. You do not want a fresh hardwood floor or new tile down when we're rolling walls. And if you're doing flooring yourself after we leave, we'll paint the base of the wall knowing the floor will come up and cover the bottom inch or two. That's how it sequences properly.

On the exterior, paint before any landscaping goes back in around the foundation. Power washing and painting near the ground kicks up mess. If the fresh sod or the new shrubs are already in, they take the hit.

Move Furniture Before the Crew Arrives

We can move light furniture. We won't move a full bedroom set, a heavy couch, or a dining table loaded with stuff. If you want us to paint the whole room, the room needs to be reasonably cleared before we get there. Every hour we spend shuffling heavy furniture is an hour we're not painting.

Ask ahead of time what needs to be cleared and do it the night before. For a whole-house repaint, that usually means pushing furniture to the center of rooms so we have wall access, pulling everything out of closets if you want those painted, and clearing the kitchen counters. It's not a lot of work but it makes a real difference in how fast we move.

Don't Try to DIY the Hard Parts and Then Call Us to Fix It

I understand wanting to save money on a remodel. But every time I've walked into a job where a homeowner started painting themselves and then called us to take over, at least half the work they did has to come off or be redone. Paint applied without primer over new drywall. Brush marks all over the trim. A ceiling that looks like it was painted with a mop. We have to factor in the time to fix those areas, and it ends up costing more than if we'd started from scratch.

If you're going to hire a crew, let them start fresh on a room. If you want to DIY something, pick a spot that's low stakes — a small bedroom, a closet — and do it all the way through yourself. Mixing DIY and professional on the same walls usually means the professional ends up redoing the DIY portion anyway.