What would you do? Paint first, Refinish Floors
 

I'm checking with the Pelican Brain Trust as this is where I get the best information.

I bought a new house that I am refurbishing to make an Airbnb. On my pre-rental list is to refinish the hardwood floors (entire house) and paint (entire interior).

My thought is that I will have to mask the floors for painting regardless if it is before or after refinishing floors. So my current plan is to refinish the hardwood floors first and then paint the interior. Any thoughts on this? I appreciate any comments I get.

The floors throughout the house are in pretty good shape but the finish is wearing off. And, I plan to go a little darker as the walls will eventually be a Spanish white.

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Floors after painting.

In new construction, floors are installed behind the other trades so they don't get beat up.
Why not do likewise?

I went through this once and I learned floors first.

Sanding the floors makes a crazy amounts of dust. If you just painted you are going to need to wash everything and can get streaky and ugly.

I would do the floors, wash everything.
Mask the floors and paint.

I did it like this the second time and it was an improvement.

100% of the time

Do the floors need refinishing? Maybe a buff and wax?
People will trash the floors in an Airbnb.

I did painting then floors in my house.

Depends who is neater, and scheduling. We typically install hardwood, then trim & other trades, paint base coats, finish the floors, then final paint. Floor finish is typically done with squeegies and mops, and at least buggers up the baseboards, sometimes splashes on the wall.

In your case I'd paint the walls, do the floors, then touch-up the base moldings. That's assuming they use a scratch pad and are not sanding, you are not changing colors, so there is minimum dust.

If full finish with sanding, what 2.7RS said.

Professional painters aren’t very messy and latex paint cleans much easier than dust and splashes from floor refinishing.

I would do floors first, then paint.

Poly needs a week to fully cure, so I'd say paint first.

(I did my floor first because of old wood and wide gaps which filled with dust.)

Floors - sanding ruins the baseboards.

I agree with the order but I would use a blower and a soft hand brush. Like a brush for a work bench.

If fresh-ish paint don't wash anything except gloss/semi-gloss trim.

No experience to back it up, but on the upside, I'm just talking.

Beautiful home.

On a couple fixers I flipped-
Paint walls and baseboards first.
Sanding the floors will scuff just the bottom of the baseboards, so I pre-painted 1" quarter round.
That covered the scuffs, and created a perfect line between painted trim and finished floor.
Just touch up the tiny nail holes.
Goes up fast, looks great.
That's what I would do again.

Whoever said paint first has never done this before. Maybe if you are installing new flooring but if you are sanding hardwood floors, you will absolutely ruin your fresh paint with the dust. It is intense and sticks to everything.

My inclination is floors first, then paint. Doing a full sand job, dust is going to go everywhere, and you don’t want that on freshly painted walls.

A whole house fan would help pull the dust out of the house when sanding.

I'd refinish the floors first.

(You can buy rolls of floor protection. It's basically tough cardboard)

It does present a challenge covering freshly refinished floors but my preferred strategy is to sand floors first, cover them with construction paper and/or drop cloths, paint and then put the varnish or other coating on the floors last. If you accidentally get a drop or two of paint on the raw wood, it’s not a big deal to clean it up and sand that spot if necessary.

This way, you put the finish on the floors last and no one needs to step on them again before they are fully cured. When they dry, the room is finished. I’ve seen it done the other way and it’s a disaster. I used to be a painter and people would be calling me to repaint the walls again because the floor job ruined them.

Think of it this way….would you paint a valuable car and then immediately sand some other part of the car next to the fresh paint?? When you paint something, you don’t want anything messing with fresh paint.

^ Sanding and covering then applying sealer and finish later doesn't work.
It would have to be re sanded. Once we start sanding, no one is allowed in the house (no foot prints or debris contamination). Doesn't make much difference to paint first or after, I've done it both ways for 50 years. Regardless, the floors should be protected from paint before OR after the flooring is re finished. Usually the order of events are determined by the schedules of the painter and the floor guy. We plastic off cabinets, light fixtures, etc. for fine dust but I've never had a complaint from a painter or home owner about our minimal dust creating a problem for paint. Our dust reclamation bags work quite well and any residual dust from us is super fine and minimal. (And we don't mess up base boards or door jambs when we sand)

Floors first. When I was doing the first reno on our old bungalow the hardwood floor guy suggested that he start on the floors and get the most of the dirty work out of the way. He did two coats of finish and held off until the painting was done to do the last coat. Worked out well.

I'm not sure I'd spend the time to redo the floors in an Airbnb. I'm not sure what the upside to that would be unless the floors just look nasty. A flip? Yeah I do the floors because it adds value.

This makes sense. How long for they cure? Surely depends on "things" but I would think four or five days. That would put a damper on wall painting work.

This would work but I'd charge extra for the added day and dust prep.

For water based I allow light traffic after 1 day, furniture after 2 days, rugs 4 days.
Oil based finish-add 2 days for foot traffic

I advise people to cap with LVT instead of re finishing the hardwood if they plan on owning and renting out the house for another 10 or more years. If they plan to unload the place earlier then it pencils out to refinish what you got

Leave a few windows open on both sides after floor poly is applied. You don't want to breathe the off-gasses.
Same for paint actually.

I don't know about the chemistry.
A slower cure might be better. Or not.
(ie use of heavy fans with dry furnace running.)
Surface hardening might induce more penetration or more cracking? I've had paint peel before.

I forgot about the contractor's construction paper that I used in my kitchen. East to cover the entire floor before painting - thanks for the reminder.

I should have the time to let the floors fully cure before painting. I have other projects to do during that period (i.e., building a new backyard fence and patio).

If you have a large drop cloth, (or two), all you need to do is put the construction paper around the perimeter and then drop cloths overlapping and covering the rest.

While the floors are in great condition, the finish is wearing down. I want the floors to be as nice as possible to start and I will be doing the floors myself with the help of a very knowledgeable friend. This is my only opportunity to do this while the house is 100% empty - both for floors and painting.

I don't have a whole house fan in this house. I will have industrial vacuum connected to the sanders and when I'm done (after vacuuming and sweeping, I could use a leaf blower to get the dust off the walls & ceilings).

LVT is not an option for me. This is a 95 year old Spanish house and I intend to keep it mostly original. The fact that it has nearly perfect hardwood floors is a huge bonus and I don't want to cover that up (except for area rugs)

That is a great idea. I was just thinking about how many rolls of the paper I would need and it would be a lot.

Are you painting the ceilings as well? If not, you might not need to cover the entire floor. If you are, obviously cover everything. Good luck, looks like a nice place and you show taste by preserving its characteristics.

Also this

Yes, ceilings will be painted. Many of the rooms have curved/coved ceilings. I think just the living room and dining room have squared off ceilings.

I wouldn't refinish those floors. They look good enough to me, for a rental place.

If you insist, to do it right, you'll want to remove the baseboards. Refinish the floor, reinstall the baseboards, then paint.

Paper around the outside, drop cloths in the middle.

But, if the photos above are of the actual house, I'd leave it the hell alone and start renting.

If the floors are in decent shape and don't need repairs, can't you do a process to get the old finish off without sanding and just lay down a new topcoat? My contractor was talking about that at our house. My terminology may not be correct but that was the general idea.