Every room is a different job
An interior repaint sounds like one job, but a painter sees several. A bedroom wall, a steamy bathroom ceiling, a kitchen with grease near the range and a two-storey stair hall each need different prep, different products and a different amount of time. This page takes a Lexington house room by room, so you can see where the effort goes and what to ask about.
Moist summer air and indoor drying
NOAA's engineering weather data for Lexington/Bluegrass counts, in an average year, about 459 hours with the wet-bulb temperature above 73°F and about 1,719 hours above 67°F. Those hours describe warm, moist outdoor air at that station.
Indoors, what matters is how much of that moisture reaches the rooms being painted. Latex paint dries by evaporation, so damp air means slower drying and longer waits between coats. Running the air conditioning or a dehumidifier while a crew works helps, and so does leaving doors open between rooms. Ask the painter what recoat time the product label gives and how they'll handle a muggy stretch.
Living rooms and bedrooms
These are the most straightforward rooms: mostly walls, some trim, a ceiling. The work that decides the result is patching nail holes and dings, sanding them flat, priming the patches and caulking the gaps between trim and wall. Eggshell or matte finishes hide small flaws better than glossier ones. The drywall repair and surface preparation guide shows what good patching looks like.
Kitchens
Kitchen walls collect a film of cooking grease, especially near the range. Paint won't hold to it, so walls should be degreased and rinsed before painting. A scrubbable satin or semi-gloss makes later cleaning easier. If the cabinets are part of the job, that's a separate project with its own prep; see cabinet painting and refinishing.
Bathrooms and laundry rooms
Steam and splashes are hard on paint. Any mildew spots need cleaning and treating before painting, and a paint made for damp rooms is worth asking for. The exhaust fan matters too; paint lasts longer when a room dries out after every shower.
Hallways and stairwells
Halls take scuffs from bags, hands and vacuum cleaners, so a durable, washable finish pays off. Stairwells add height: a crew may need a stair-specific ladder setup or a small scaffold to reach the upper wall safely, which takes time to set up and move. Ask how they'll reach the high wall without leaning on fresh paint.
Ceilings
Ceilings are slow, overhead work. Water stains, smoke or nicotine marks bleed through ordinary paint and need a stain-blocking primer first. Flat ceiling paint hides roller marks and minor imperfections. If the ceiling has a texture, ask whether it's been painted before, since old texture can loosen when wet.
Trim and doors
Trim and doors get the glossiest paint in the house, which also shows every brush mark and every bump that wasn't sanded. Good prep means cleaning, scuffing glossy old paint so the new coat grips, filling dents and caulking joints. Doors may come off their hinges to be painted flat. See interior painting and paint sheens and finishes.
Lead-safe work indoors
Under EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule, anyone paid to do work that disturbs paint in homes, childcare facilities and preschools built before 1978 must hold RRP certification, firms included, even sole proprietorships, and their workers must be trained in lead-safe work practices. EPA runs the RRP program in states it has not authorized; Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin run their own EPA-authorized programs.
Indoors, the parts most likely to be sanded or scraped are window sills, doors, stair railings and trim. On a pre-1978 house, ask whether the painter's firm holds RRP certification and how they'll seal off the work area and clean up.
How to sequence the rooms
1. Decide which rooms are in and which are out. 2. Clear the rooms you can; the crew will cover what stays. 3. Ceilings go first, then walls, then trim and doors. 4. Bathrooms and kitchens may need a day before they're back in use.
For what drives the price, read the pricing guide. Tell us which rooms you have in mind and we'll put you in touch with one independent local painter in Lexington.