Painting Common Areas With Minimal Disruption

The painting part of a common area repaint is the straightforward half.

The difficult half is that the building keeps operating. Residents come and go, deliveries arrive, the lift keeps running, and nobody can be locked out of their own front door.

The constraints that shape the job

One lift in most older buildings. Everything comes in and out through it, and it has to be protected and available. Blocking the only lift for an hour is not a minor inconvenience on a building with elderly residents.

Fire stairs and corridors are egress routes. They cannot be obstructed. Drop sheets, trestles and equipment have to leave a clear path at all times, which limits how much of a corridor can be live at once.

Apartment doors open into the work area, at any hour, without warning.

Wet paint and daily life do not mix. Anything at hand height in a corridor has to be dry before residents come home.

How we stage it

By section rather than by floor, so no resident loses access to their door for more than a short period.

Doors and frames get done on a schedule communicated to each apartment, because that is the element that actually affects people. A door that cannot be closed for four hours needs the occupant to know in advance.

Handrails and balustrades in stairs get done one side at a time, so there is always something to hold.

Ceilings and high work go early in the day. Hand height finishes go early enough to be dry by the evening.

Notification is most of it

Residents accept disruption they were warned about.

A notice at the entry and in the lift, a week ahead, saying what is happening, which areas and which days. Then a reminder the day before for anything affecting apartment doors.

That single item removes the overwhelming majority of complaints, and skipping it generates complaints that reach the committee rather than the contractor.

Product choice matters more here than anywhere

Low odour paints are worth the cost difference in an enclosed corridor with no natural ventilation. An occupied building cannot air out the way an empty one can.

Fast recoat times decide whether a section is finished in a day or spread over two.

Washable finishes on corridor walls, because they get scuffed by furniture, prams and bikes from the day they are painted.

Correct products on fire doors. Fire doors have limits on what can be applied to them and how thick the build can be, and they carry tags that must not be painted over. That is a compliance matter, not a preference, and it sits alongside the rest of the [fire door](/blog/fire-doors-in-residential-buildings) requirements.

Preparation decides the finish

Corridor walls carry twenty years of patched picture hooks, scuffs and mismatched touch ups.

Filling, sanding and spot priming is the difference between a repaint that looks new and one that looks like a fresh coat over old damage. In a common area the light is usually poor and even, which hides less than people expect.

Where damage runs deeper than paint, it needs the plaster repair done first, and done properly, which is the [make good that looks original](/blog/make-good-that-looks-original-not-patched) standard rather than a smear of filler.

Timing across the year

Internal common areas can be painted any time. External work is weather dependent and follows the [external painting](/blog/external-painting-and-when-to-repaint) cycle.

Avoid December in a residential building. Between January and March suits most buildings, and it keeps the work clear of the period when everybody is home.

Ample paints common areas across the eastern suburbs and inner city, and runs the carpentry, plaster and door hardware repairs in the same programme so the building is dealt with once.