5 Reasons to Paint Your Interior and When

Interior common use spaces such as foyers, hallways, elevator doors, unit entry doors, and stairwells are in daily use and over time accumulate wear and tear. Unsightly wall stains, scuff marks from the movers trolleys, loose or damaged trim boards, failed caulking that is falling out, or cracked ceilings are drawing your attention to the fact that an interior repaint may be due.

Being unsightly with a bit of missing caulking can wait a bit longer, right? What’s another 12 months of a couple of broken baseboards, failed caulking and a cracked ceiling? Should you put it off or should you face the situation now and commit to a fresh re-coat of those common use spaces? It’s a question that owners, strata councils, and managers must tackle from time to time.

Here are five points to take into consideration when deciding whether to commit to an interior re-coating project and when may be the best time of the year for the project.

Urgency Will Save You Money

It would be a fair observation from the last couple of years that nothing is getting cheaper. Whether it is the cost of labour, or the costs of materials and supplies, inflation is affected these costs and subsequently. It would therefore be a reasonable statement that the interior re-coating project is cheaper to do now than it will be in another year’s time. Inflation is causing price increases as is the availability of paints and coatings. Supply chain issues of the past couple of years coupled with major weather events have interrupted the manufacturing of raw ingredients and the supply of manufactured coatings to the painting industry across North America. Planning your project for the winter months will enable your contractor to secure supplies well in advance of the scheduled start date and lock in pricing.

Availability of Labour

Contractor availability is greater during the winter months than it is during the high demand summer exterior painting season. For this reason, painting contractors tend to be more competitive with their pricing as they seek to keep their high value and well functioning teams employed during the slacker winter months. So, plan your interior project for the winter months to take advantage of better contractor pricing and an increased and uninterrupted availability of coating products.

Pride of Ownership

A fresh coat of paint instantly improves the appearance of a building’s interior. An updated colour scheme and the renewed gloss of walls, doors and trim boards with fresh bright contemporary colours may increase the value of your property. A freshly recoated interior is a more aesthetically pleasing space, and you may expect happier residents and tenants with an uplift in their sense of pride in where they reside or conduct their business. An increase in the desire for others to purchase or rent units in your building can be expected, and this should be taken into consideration to keep your building fully occupied and profitable. The opportunity to modernize the interior colour scheme and make it more appealing keeps it up to date, relevant, and in demand by prospective purchasers or tenants.

Money Saving Aspects in the Scope of Work

The opportunity to replace worn out and failed interior sealants and caulking may improve your buildings heating and cooling costs. Gaps in caulking may be allowing drafts to circulate throughout your buildings common spaces which may be adding to the cost to heat and cool the building as our weather extremes have become more pronounced in recent years. We all see the adds on tv to replace windows with energy efficient alternatives. Interior caulking is just as important in controlling your building costs. Elevator shafts, stairwell service doors, hallway ceiling cracks, missing baseboards, holes in the drywall, or areas where interior sealants have failed such as around windows will allow ingress of unheated or uncooled air which adds to your costs. Maintaining or replacing interior sealants and caulking as part of an interior re-coating project will seal off those small gaps that are costing you money and improve your bottom line.

Maintain Property Values

The fifth and last point is the real value generated from the prolonged longevity of your building’s interior that necessary repairs, renewed caulking, and recoated substrates that combined maximize your properties value and ensure its profitability well into the future. Paints and sealants are the protective coatings for the substrates on and in your building and it is only the upkeep and renewing of these coatings that will continue to protect your building and prolong its profitability.

In conclusion, it is best to plan for an interior re-coating project during the winter months when costs will be less driven by supply and demand for labour and paints and therefore better pricing can be expected. An interior re-coating project should include all necessary repairs to trim boards, ceiling and wall defects and cracks with the renewing of sealants and caulking to be included. The opportunity for a colour change and the effects that a more contemporary colour scheme that will with stand the test of time can have on the perceived value of your property should not be overlooked and the expertise of a good colour consultant is an excellent inclusion in your project to affect this change.

Hire an Expert for Peace of Mind!

And finally and not to be overlooked would be the inclusion of an independent third party coatings inspection company, such as Inspec Consulting, who can provide written specifications for your project, take it to tender and manage the project through to completion for a reasonable cost.

Contact Inspec Consulting for a no obligation chat about your project. Our inspectors are always happy to discuss your project, provide some guidance and discuss the benefits of including our services with your project.