Paint and Coating Questions Checklist

Walk each room and write down which surfaces are plaster, plasterboard, timber, metal or masonry, and note where you are unsure rather than guessing.

Different backgrounds often need different preparation and different products, and one room can contain several. Naming them honestly avoids a finish being chosen for the wrong surface.

Note any surface that has already been patched or repaired, and mark where the repair is, because these areas often take a coating differently from the surface around them.

Patches frequently show through as a dull or shiny area once the room is finished, and mentioning them early lets a decorator allow for it.

Record where a surface feels damp or cool to the touch or smells musty, and describe what you observed rather than offering a diagnosis of the cause.

Your observations are useful information; the interpretation is not yours to make. Writing down what you noticed keeps the conversation factual.

Persistent damp normally needs a qualified professional to establish the cause before any coating decision is made.

Look along each wall in raking light from a lamp or a low sun and write down whether the existing coating is chalky, glossy, flaking or previously papered.

Raking light shows undulations, roller marks and residual paper that are invisible when you look straight at a wall.

Note the age of the building as far as you know it, and whether older coating layers may still be present under the current finish.

Older paint layers can contain hazardous material. Ask a qualified professional how they should be assessed and handled before any preparation begins.

Photograph every surface you are describing and keep the images with your notes, so the same words mean the same thing to everyone later.

Photographs settle arguments about what a surface looked like beforehand, and they let a supplier see what you are describing without a visit.

Ask the supplier whether larger sample pieces are available, and look at each option on the wall it is intended for rather than only on a handheld card.

A small card surrounded by white board reads lighter and cleaner than the same colour spread across a full wall.

Look at each candidate colour in the morning, in the afternoon and under the artificial lighting you actually use in that room.

Rooms facing different directions receive very different light, and lamps can shift a colour noticeably. Judging once, at one moment, is how colours get chosen and then regretted.

Note which way the room faces and what sits outside the window, because reflected light from a fence, a tree or a brick wall often tints a wall colour.

Green cast from foliage and warm cast from brickwork are common and are almost never noticed until the room is finished.

Decide and record the sheen level you want for each surface, and hold sheen samples against the existing light source to see how much they reveal.

Sheen affects how much surface imperfection is visible and how the surface can be cleaned, yet colour usually takes all the attention.

Place candidate samples next to the things you are keeping, such as flooring, worktops, tiles and existing joinery, rather than judging them in isolation.

Most disappointing colour choices are made against a white wall and only fail once they sit beside the materials that were never going to change.

Write down which colour reference belongs to which room and which surface, because unlabelled samples become impossible to tell apart once there are several.

Similar neutrals become indistinguishable once there are several of them, and a mislabelled sample can travel all the way to an order.

Write down which walls get touched, leaned on, scuffed by furniture or reached by children and pets, and say so when you describe what you need.

Hallways, stairwells and the wall beside a sofa take a different kind of punishment from a spare bedroom, and that difference should shape the choice.

Note where condensation appears on cold mornings and which rooms have no opening window or no extraction at all.

Condensation and ventilation problems often need a qualified professional to assess, and a coating choice alone may not address the underlying cause.

Record which surfaces you clean regularly and what you clean them with, because wipeability expectations vary a great deal between coating types.

People often assume any wall can be scrubbed. Saying out loud how you clean lets the supplier point you towards something that will tolerate it.

Identify surfaces that receive direct sunlight for long stretches and mention them, since some colours and finishes change appearance more than others.

A wall that is half in sun and half in shade can end up visibly different across a single elevation of the room.

Note whether radiators, pipework or other heat sources sit against a surface you plan to coat, and ask what that means for the product choice.

Surfaces behind and above heat sources behave differently and are also where discolouration and staining tend to appear first.

Say plainly whether the room has to be used again quickly after decorating, and ask what that means for the products under discussion.

Raising the constraint as a question lets the decorator and supplier respond, rather than having it discovered halfway through the work.

Ask exactly what preparation is included in the work being described, including filling, sanding, sealing, priming and making good, and ask for the answer in writing.

Preparation is the part that is invisible when it has been done and obvious when it has not, and it is the most common source of disagreement.

Agree in writing who removes and refits fixtures such as handles, switch plates, curtain poles, shelves and radiator covers.

These small tasks are frequently assumed to belong to the other party, and they hold up a room on the first morning.

Ask who is responsible for moving and protecting furniture, floor coverings and anything too heavy or fragile to move.

Protection of what stays in the room is often left unstated, and damage arguments afterwards are hard to settle.

Discuss with a qualified professional whether any existing coating needs to be taken back rather than coated over, and record what they tell you.

Whether an existing coating can be overcoated is a judgement for a qualified professional who has seen the surface, not something to settle from a description.

Note which surfaces you want made good and which you accept as they are, because an unspoken expectation about a cracked ceiling causes more trouble than the crack.

Writing this down converts a vague hope into an agreed scope that both sides can work towards and discuss openly.

Ask how many coats are being allowed for on each surface and whether that changes where you are moving from a dark colour to a pale one.

Strong colour changes often need more covering than a like-for-like refresh, and that assumption should be stated rather than discovered.

Ask whether sample patches can be prepared in more than one position in the room, including a wall away from the window and a section near a corner.

A colour judged only on the brightest wall will look quite different in the darkest corner of the same room.

Label every patch with its reference and keep a written list matching each label to its position, so the naming survives the comparison.

Unlabelled patches are the reason people end up ordering the wrong shade after a long stretch of careful looking.

Compare candidates side by side rather than one after another, because memory for colour is unreliable even over a short gap.

Comparing in sequence tends to reward whichever option was seen most recently rather than the one that suits the room.

Look at each patch with the room furnished as it will be, since large soft furnishings and rugs change what the walls appear to be doing.

An empty room reflects light around far more than a furnished one, which is why colours often look darker after moving back in.

Narrow to a small number of options before involving the rest of the household, and write down what each person preferred and the reason they gave.

Recording the reason rather than only the preference makes it much easier to settle the choice without repeating the whole exercise.

Keep the shortlisted samples until the work is finished, so the delivered material can be compared against what was actually agreed.

If a delivered material looks different from the agreed sample, raise it with the supplier before it is used rather than afterwards.

Ask what surface and air conditions the manufacturer states for the product being proposed, and write them down rather than assuming any conditions will do.

Conditions on site are frequently very different from the conditions a product was formulated for, particularly in an empty unheated house.

Application conditions are set by the manufacturer. Ask the supplier for their written statement rather than relying on a verbal summary.

Note whether any surfaces are newly plastered or newly rendered, and ask what that means for the products under discussion.

Newly applied backgrounds often need particular treatment before coating. Ask a qualified professional and the coating supplier what applies in your case.

Check what heating and ventilation will be available while the work is under way, and ask who is responsible for arranging it.

In an empty or partly stripped property this is frequently nobody's job until it becomes a problem.

Ask what the manufacturer states about recoating the same surface, and treat that as a product instruction rather than something to be negotiated on site.

Pressure to finish a room quickly is where recoating guidance quietly gets abandoned and where finishes later fail.

Discuss how dust from preparation will be controlled, where cutting and sanding will take place and what happens to the waste.

Dust travels through a house far beyond the room being worked on, and the arrangements are easier to agree beforehand.

Note which rooms will be unusable while the work is under way and agree how the household will manage, including where furniture will sit.

Occupied redecoration usually needs a room-by-room sequence, and that sequence should be agreed rather than improvised.

Ask the supplier which cleaning methods and products the finish tolerates, and write the answer down somewhere you will actually find it later.

Wall finishes are commonly ruined by household cleaners within the first few outings because nobody wrote down what to avoid.

Ask whether touch-ups are likely to blend or to show, since some finishes recover well and others record every repair as a patch.

If a finish does not touch up well, that changes how you feel about using it in a hallway or a child's room.

Request the batch reference for each material used and keep it with your records in case more of the same is needed.

Without the reference, a later repair becomes a guessing exercise, and a slightly different batch is visible on a large wall.

Agree who keeps any leftover material and where it will be stored, and ask what storage conditions the supplier states for it.

Ask the supplier how leftover coating material should be stored and disposed of, and confirm locally what applies where you live.

Ask how the finish is expected to behave in a room with heavy condensation or frequent wiping before choosing it for a bathroom or a kitchen.

A finish that performs well in a bedroom may be a poor choice in a room that is regularly steamy, and the supplier can say which is which.

Note which surfaces you would be willing to recoat sooner and which you want left alone for as long as possible, and let that guide the choices.

Being honest about where you will accept more upkeep usually produces a better set of decisions than treating every room the same.

Write a single sheet listing each room, each surface type and the finish reference agreed, so that nothing important depends on memory.

This one sheet is what a decorator, a supplier and a future owner will all want, and it takes far less effort to make than to reconstruct.

Record who chose each finish and what the reason was, particularly where a compromise was made between two people or two rooms.

Recorded reasoning stops a settled decision being reopened repeatedly once samples are no longer on the wall.

Keep the manufacturer information sheets supplied for each product together with the rest of your material records.

These sheets carry the cleaning and recoating information you will want much later, long after the conversation itself is forgotten.

Note any surface that was deliberately left untouched and the reason, so that it is not treated later as an omission or a fault.

Leaving a ceiling or a run of skirting out is a legitimate decision, but only if it is written down as a decision.

Record any change agreed after the work started, including who agreed it, on which surface and what it replaced.

Changes agreed verbally on site are easily forgotten. Ask for them to be confirmed in writing by the person carrying out the work.