Thinking it’s normal to repaint the house every couple of years?

[Cloudyyy]

Help solve a debate for us.

DH thinks once you’ve painted a room, it should be done! No touch-ups or fresh coats necessary. MIL agrees they’ve never needed to repaint unless otherwise redecorating, sometimes going 10+ years between paint jobs (and absolutely never more often than every five years).

I remember my parents always “touching up” with a fresh coat of paint every other spring, alternating doing upstairs and downstairs. DM used to sponge the walls sometimes with warm soapy water if we had scuffed it.

What is the norm???

YABU = we never repaint unless absolutely necessary
YANBU = we retouch the paint jobs from time to time

I should add we have young children, so messy/ sticky fingers on the walls are unavoidable at times!!!

I don’t think paint is expensive when compared to wallpaper. A tin of paint is £20, you could do a whole room for £40. A roll of wallpaper which covers around 3 drops is also £20, you could do a whole room for £100. Wipe clean paint is obviously better than wallpaper for cleaning dirt. It’s not the money anyway, it’s the time. And washing walls is also a standard part of cleaning, it needs doing especially around light bulbs and on the stairs. Only once or twice a year.

I also doubt a room painted before many people on this thread were born, looks like it was painted last week. Different people, different standards, that’s all.

Light switches. Not bulbs!

Yeah I can’t get too worked up about research from 31 years ago. VOCs in paint have been massively reduced since the mid 90s.

We are currently painting cause I am over the horrible mushroom colour on every wall.
but due to our busyness it is just over a year since I started. Only 1.5 rooms to go.

3 bedrooms, two living areas, 3 bathrooms, living and dining rooms are done.

Then I get to start on the outside.

Blooming heck. We moved in 10years ago and haven't quite finished round one of all the gloss. Absolutely hate painting. We also have a lot of 'stuff' so not easy to actually clear a room enough to paint. Plus busy lives/ lots of other stuff we'd rather be doing. We are swapping child and spare room at the moment (a process we started talking about 6 months ago). And have agreed we can change the colour of the walls of his new room. We've started discussing colour. I reckon another couple of months before everything is in place. We don't like to rush . My god decorating every room in the house every couple of years is never happening in this house!

When we moved in I painted the kitchen straight away because I hated the colour, DD came along so painted the nursery, then the bathroom was completely redone, found out we were expecting DS so redecorated guest room for DD (DS now in the nursery, only part of one wall has been touched up where he had an epic poo explosion!) and now currently in the process of redecorating our room! Still have the living room, dining room, hall stairs and landing to go - we've been here 5 years!!