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 live in a flat with big rooms and tall ceilings - decorating is a laborious and expensive business that happens less than once a decade here. It probably looks a bit tired but thankfully I have low standards.

Does everyone really do the painting themselves then? Doesn't it look like shit?! Or is everyone an experienced and skilled painter?

I think this is a boast about how much money you have to burn

I wish!

I paint myself and only pay someone else to do the hall stairs and landing as I can't reach it and it would take me ages to do it. The painter I have used doesn't cost a lot. He is not a good painter though he covers the areas I can't reach/does the edging fine. When he leaves I go back over all the parts he has missed. I know it sounds crazy writing that down but I don't have the money to pay for somebody more expensive. The reason I touch up frequently is also because I don't have the money to have everything repainted every year or two.

It sounds like an awful lot of effort to strip and paint half a house every year
It is awful lot of effort. That's why loads of people don't actually strip so then the poor soul who bought the house couple of decades later has 12 fucking layers of various paints to deal with.
Especially the gloss shit on door frames😐

I guess it also depends on the size of your house and how dirty it gets. I have a lot of rooms in the main house and another two rooms in a separate building. There's no way on earth everything would be decorated every other year.

I do touch up scuffs. I keep a jam jar of the paint for each room for that purpose.

We have two rooms that have not been decorated since we moved in ten years ago but they're next on the list to be done. I suspect we'll then start again. Probably doing one or two a year. So that seems to give us a roughly 8-10 year cycle. And interior design is an interest of mine.

Wash walls, yes and touch up odd noticeable scuffs off DC and ddog but I'm not doing a whole new paint job every couple of years. I couldn't afford to as I'm no good at painting and our decorator wasn't cheap.

I hate decorating. I do it only when required.

I certainly wouldn't be repainting every couple of years just because.

I lived next door to a lovely family- who were constantly decorating and doing DIY.
They decorated each room every year, including new floor coverings a new kitchen every few years ( he was a joiner).

They aspired to having a good looking home, but in the 10 years I lived next door I never saw that goal being achieved.
No sooner was one room finished ( and it would only take a week or two) then they woould move on to the next project.

Each piece of work was completed to a hig stangard, but no sooner would they finish the sitting room, then the bathroom would be ripped out, that was finished, then time to do the kitchen.

The point I could never understand was that for a family who claimed to like an attractive living enviromnent- they never achieved that.
80% of the time they were in the midst of decorating, or tiling, or ripping up the floor.
Just living constantly with pots of paint and tools around.

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Paints do change over time. You can always see the difference when ceilings are freshly painted even though it’s just white on white.

Oh I feel so exhausted reading threads like this (and the ones about how people clean their homes - ie cleaning things I’ve never known anyone clean)

Unless you smoke, have open fires, have children who scribble on walls or love decorating why would you redecorate this frequently?

The best way to deal with messy, sticky fingers is to paint with washable paint and get a magic eraser, then you won't need to keep repainting.

Wow it's just so needless to do that. I'm with your dh

My rental house gets done rvery 2-3 on average. Our home about every 5 years. Certainly not much more often than that unless there was a significant issue-eg a water leak or moving furniture that showed fading or damage.

I will only do it once the children go to university and will get it done professionally.

The whole house was replastered and painted 7 years ago and still looks good, I reckon.

I thought 5 years was the rule of thumb but that is for people who like their environment pristine and have cash and time to burn.

That's why loads of people don't actually strip so then the poor soul who bought the house couple of decades later has 12 fucking layers of various paints to deal with.
Especially the gloss shit on door frames

Our house was build in the 50s, when we bought 10 years ago we had 60 years of paint on paint on paint and woodchip on paint on woodchip on paint on wallpaper on paint etc. to deal with. I think our rooms were noticeably bigger after stripping the paper!

We’ve been in our house 9 years. In that time we’ve decorated -
Lounge 2 times (incl fitting a gas fire & surround)
Hall stairs & landing 2 times (incl fitting new staircase, wood flooring and carpet)
Bathroom 3 times (incl fitting one new complete suite & shower)
Main Bedroom 3 times
DS room 3 times
Spare Room 1 time
Kitchen 2 times (incl taking up old tile floor and re tiling)
Cloakroom 2 times (incl fitting one new loo & sink unit)
Initially all rooms needed more attention ie plastering, new skirtings, new carpets but now it’s a case of just changing or refreshing paint colours or wallpaper on feature walls. My DH is excellent at DIY and I’m his less able assistant 😁.

My house has artex over wallpaper in one area

My dad was a painter and decorator and he always advised one room a year. When you finish the last room, start again.

The house I'm in was completely done in 2014. Some rooms look tired now. Bedrooms are fine, virtually unused though.
But the whole downstairs is getting to a need to paint stage. Sometime this year we are putting new flooring down, my plan is to repaint then. It should be ok for another 5 or 6 years. By which time the bedrooms will need doing too. I hope.

We moved in 4 years ago and need to redecorate really. I don’t know when the previous owners did the painting but it needs doing now. I’m not sure I can be bothered until the baby is a bit older and past flinging food.

it is certainly not planet / environmentally friendly to be decorating every couple of years

we would paint the outside of house every 10 years inside once a room is done it is done,
kitchen and bathroom walls redone every 7 years others don't need redoing from 10 years ago will be redoing DD's room as she is now 10 and outgrown the wall paper but she is now getting a bigger room have said the big items have to be fairly classic ( house is listed) as cost too much to re-do like curtains with 4 metre drop, wall paper and carpet need to last ( I expect the curtains and carpet to last 20-30+ years hence why we will be choosing them the wall paper not so long perhaps) but bedlinen, pictures and cushions can be changed style wise easily and fairly cheaply but we do not encourage changing stuff for the sake of change
Which is why I would never go for trendy colours as they look dated and tired in 5 years while something more timeless doesn't
my parents have been married 52 years the kitchn was replaced in 1982, they had new door fronts and worktops in 2018 the walls have been painted maybe 4-5 times
lounge is on third carpet and third suite ( previous 2 were secondhand) I think it has been re decorated 3 times

I think paints have changed.
So my hallway paintcan be washed down with warm water and flash. that means it doesn't need repainting so often.
But it does get chipped, and so I do touch it up. But it was painted originally 5 years ago, and I am not about to repaint it.

My dining room was the first one we painted when we moved in, and I have touched up the corner that gets fingers on it, but the rest of the room is fine. I love the curtains and am not about to repaint it! Same goes for living room, bedrooms etc. They get repainted when they need it, and for some that means years.

YANBU paint looks much shabbier and dirtier than we think imo.

I repainted the kitchen a year ago and the dining room in October. The last time the dining room was done was in 2011. I then did a bedroom which had last been redecorated in 2004.

We don't tend to trash our house so it needs very little maintenance. I would like our lounge doing, but I will get a decorator in for that.

I think this is similar to fast fashion and changing your wardrobe each year with the passing fashions rather than having classic quality clothes that suit the seasons. So if you go for decorations that arent a fleeting fashion and are done with quality paints/wallpapers etc with a few bits you change out maybe, like cushions, throws etc then over time you spend a lot less and dont have all the faff. Although you may need to clean any hard wearing areas once in a while