What to Do Before the Decorators Arrive: A Simple Checklist

Once your decorating is booked, there's a little you can do to help things go smoothly, and plenty you don't need to worry about because it's our job. The decorating preparation itself, filling, sanding, masking and protecting your home, is all on us. This checklist is about the practical bits around that: clearing space, sorting access and flagging anything we should know. Get these right and the work tends to run faster, stay tidier and sometimes cost a little less.

Why a little preparation helps

We come fully equipped to protect your home and do all the surface preparation properly. But the more clear and accessible a room is when we arrive, the less time we spend working around obstacles, and the lower the risk of anything getting in the way. None of the following is essential, we'll always work with what we find, but it genuinely helps.

Clear the room as much as you can

You don't need to empty the place. We move and cover larger furniture as part of the job. What's worth doing yourself is the small stuff:

• Ornaments, books, photos and anything breakable or sentimental.
• Valuables and important documents, keep these somewhere separate.
• Electronics and small appliances where you easily can.
• Anything on windowsills, mantelpieces and shelves.

Take down what's on the walls

Where it's easy, take down pictures, mirrors and small wall fittings, and lift curtains or blinds if the walls or woodwork around them are being painted. Leave the holes and fixings to us, filling and making good is part of the work. If something's awkward or heavy to remove, leave it and we'll sort it on the day.

Sort access and parking

We carry a fair amount of kit, so somewhere to park reasonably close and a clear route in saves time at the start and end of each day. If parking is permit-only or tight, let us know in advance so we can plan. A clear hallway and stairs to the rooms we're working in helps too.

Tell us about the tricky bits

A quick heads-up about anything unusual means no surprises on the day. Useful things to mention:

• Delicate or special surfaces, antique furniture, a new carpet, anything that needs extra care.
• Known problems like damp, a leak or cracked plaster, so we can plan to deal with them properly.
• Alarms, smart devices or anything we should avoid or that needs disabling.
• Pets and their routine, and any rooms or doors to keep shut.

Pets, children and routine

For everyone's safety, it's best to keep pets and young children out of the rooms we're working in, there are tools, wet paint and sometimes doors propped open. If you work from home, let us know and we'll plan the order of rooms so we disrupt you as little as possible.

What you can leave entirely to us

Just so it's clear, you don't need to lift a finger on any of this. The whole point of hiring a decorator is that the work, and the mess, is handled. We take care of moving and covering heavy furniture, protecting floors and fittings, all the surface preparation, filling and sanding, masking off what isn't being painted, controlling dust, and a proper tidy-up at the end of each day with a final clean when we finish.

Booking in

We cover Broxbourne, the Lea Valley and the wider areas we serve, for everything from a single room to a full repaint. If you'd like to get a job booked, tell us about your project, and if you're still weighing it up, our guide on what painting and decorating costs explains what goes into a quote.