A professional painting crew can rip through a Toronto home in days when the homeowner has done their prep — and stall painfully when they haven't. The work below is yours to handle before day 1. None of it is hard, but each item not done is 15–30 minutes the crew spends doing it for you, often without warning, and sometimes billed as an extra. This checklist walks through every item.
3-5 days before the start date
- Confirm scope and timeline with your contractor. A quick "still on for Monday?" call avoids miscommunications
- Confirm colour final selections — once paint is ordered, changing colours costs time and money
- Confirm parking — most Toronto residential streets have parking restrictions. If you're in a permit area, get a temporary permit for the crew's truck
- Notify neighbours — especially for exterior work or condo units. Saves complaints later
- Confirm pet plan — pets either need to be out of the work area or in a sealed-off room. Open paint cans and curious cats are a bad mix
2 days before
- Take down wall art, photos, mirrors, clocks — anything hanging on walls being painted
- Remove curtains and curtain rods if walls behind/around them are being painted
- Take down outlet plates, switch plates, register covers in rooms being painted. Put screws in a labelled bag
- Empty closets if you're painting closet interiors
- Move small furniture, lamps, side tables out of the work zone
1 day before
- Move large furniture to the room center for the crew to cover with plastic. Or move it to another room if practical
- Cover or move electronics — TVs, computers, audio equipment. Dust kills electronics during prep sanding
- Cover bedding, towels, soft furnishings in adjacent areas if interior sanding is happening
- Cover or relocate fragile items — vases, glassware, art
- Clean the surfaces lightly — wipe walls with a damp cloth to remove dust and cobwebs. Crew will do a proper clean but a head start helps
- Confirm water and bathroom access — crew needs to wash brushes and rollers
- Identify any colour transitions you want crisp — point out wall-to-ceiling lines, accent wall edges, etc. Easier to discuss before tape goes up
Morning of day 1
- Be home (or have a key plan) for the crew arrival — usually 7:30-8:30 AM
- Walk through the rooms with the crew lead — confirm scope, colours, special instructions
- Identify which rooms are off-limits — bedrooms in use, home offices with critical equipment, anything not in the project
- Provide a kitchen or bathroom plan — where the crew can wash up, refill water, use a washroom
- Set expectations for noise and access — when you'll be home, when you need quiet for calls, when you can't have access blocked
For exterior projects — additional items
- Trim back vegetation within 3 feet of the painted surface
- Move outdoor furniture, BBQs, planters away from walls
- Confirm access to garden hose for power washing
- Close windows on the day(s) the crew is working — paint odour and overspray can drift inside
- Plan for weather delays — Toronto exterior work pauses for rain. Schedule accordingly. See when to paint guide
For condo projects — special considerations
Downtown Toronto condo painting has elevator and access constraints that differ from house work:
- Book the freight elevator — most buildings require 2-hour booking windows. Confirm with the building manager before the project starts
- Get unit-painting permission — some boards have approval requirements for unit interior colours visible from common areas
- Provide a certificate of insurance — most condo boards require this from the painting contractor. Your contractor handles this on request
- Check noise restrictions — most buildings limit noisy work to weekday business hours
- Confirm visitor parking for the crew — limited in most downtown buildings
What NOT to do
- Don't pre-clean walls with chemical cleaners — they leave residue that affects paint adhesion. Plain water or TSP if necessary
- Don't pre-prime — if priming is needed, the crew brings the right primer for the job
- Don't pre-tape — you'll usually do it wrong and the crew has to redo it
- Don't sand or scrape lead-paint era surfaces — homes built before 1978 may have lead paint; only trained crews should handle
- Don't repaint over the contractor's first coat thinking it'll save time — interrupts the schedule and creates compatibility issues
If the prep isn't done
Reputable Toronto painters like All Painting will do the prep themselves and bill it. Standard rate is $40–65/hour per crew member. A typical "homeowner didn't prep" charge for a 3-bedroom condo is $200–400. Worth doing it yourself — most of these tasks take a couple of hours total.
Project starting soon? Reach All Painting Toronto at (416) 710-4224 for questions about scope, prep expectations, or scheduling. Pre-project walkthroughs are part of standard service across the GTA.