Is this normal with a professional painter?

[bumblebeefairy]

Hi everyone,

Would be very grateful for some advice. Not too sure what the norm on expectations should be!

We sanded and hard wax oiled all the floors in our property ourselves- a horrible job! They look great, thankfully.

Thought we would treat ourselves to getting painting done.

Painter was there for the first day today, did two rooms. Laid down their own sheets etc on the flooring reasonably roughly- but to be fair, we still have stuff in the rooms (brought to the centre of the room, tidied away, walls fully clear etc).

There are about nine paint marks on the floor of one of the rooms!

Around the edges. Some a few mm, others a centimetre or two, one few cm swirl of neat dribbled paint.

Is this to be expected?! They didn't mention anything to me about it. Most of it does come off okay with white spirit, but with some change to the colour of the overall section of board with the oil coming off, that I notice having laboured over them! The swirl I have tried to remove but it leaves a shadow still, also with the oil colour problem.

I could try sanding the separate spots when they leave with a small sander- and doing a touch up with the oil. Unsure if that would look patchy though.

Just worried that they have the rest of the house to do! Where there are pretty intensely coloured paints. Who knows how bad it could be.

Is this the norm? Like will they clean the mess at the end all at once, and somehow be able to do a better job than me, at least in getting dealing with the swirl etc?

After all the hard work of sanding, I thought this was our time to relax!

Oh, and we had to sand first as we wanted to prioritise it being done whilst the house was empty, before we moved in.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

DH is away and I am dreading having a confrontational conversation with them in the morning. The walls themselves do look good, though.

I don't think it's to be expected. Imagine if you had cream carpet for example! We had a decorater painting our bedrooms, they haVe wooden floors. There was the odd drop of paint on the floor, post painting, but nothing like you've described. I would expect better if you're paying!

Does he mistakenly think you're having carpets laid after he's finished?! It's absolutely not normal and you need to ask him to be more careful.

I had my house done years back, there were odd bits, like one socket that's low to the ground wasn't painted under, but there were no drips on the floors. Recently had stine work done and there were just a small few drip Mark's.

Definitely not normal. Tell them to fix it!

My husband is a painter and he would not do this. I think it's much easier to clean up as soon as it happens but he should have the flooring protected properly.

On dear that doesn’t sound good, though ideally I think you do the walls before the floors, though maybe not with sanding?
Sound stupid but did they definitely know you had done the floors to the final finish? They didn’t think carpet was going down or something? It will be very hard for them to do the skirting without getting any on the floor.
But definitely speak for them tomorrow and say you’ve noticed it and the effect it’s had on the floor then hopefully they will be more careful!

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate that. Didn't know what to expect, but had a suspicion I wasn't being precious!!

Yes, they knew it is the final finish. He actually commented on the floors looking so good, and asked what I had finished them with!!! The irony.

Wasn't ideal to do the flooring first. We had a month in changeover between renting notice and moving in- didn't have time to do both (even with paying a painter) so did the floors first, whilst everywhere was empty.

I will say to them tomorrow. I can try to patch up one room the best I can once they're gone if needed and hopefully it will look okay. But it would be horrific doing the same in every room, especially after all the work we have put into the floors.

Thank you again.

Sorry if this is too obvious but have you tried wiping the paint off with a hot cloth. Most paints are water based and I went round with a cloth after ours was done and and wiped off all the splatters.

Sorry if this is too obvious but have you tried wiping the paint off with a hot cloth. Most paints are water based and I went round with a cloth after ours was done and and wiped off all the splatters.

I was just coming on to say this. We had a good few spatters after our recent paint job but they came off very easily with a wet cloth, without damaging the floor finish. If it was emulsion or satinwood paint it should come off without the need for white spirit.

Thank you. Good suggestion. I had a go, and it's not really budging at all with a hot cloth. Maybe a difference between varnish and oiled floors? Who knows. Perhaps explains to some extent though why they were relaxed about it if they thought it would just ripe off easily too... thank you for the idea

I'm just as surprised he did two rooms, not one.

Presumably the first layer or undercoat of both rooms, both rooms are planned to be white so its difficult to tell. Hope it's not being rushed by the sounds of it...

Not normal. I wouldn't let them paint any further rooms. In my experience, baby wipes with a lot of elbow grease and patience works without damaging the floor.