Corella Painting does interior house painting across Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, from a single bedroom to a whole house. We move the furniture, cover the floors, fill and sand every dent, and paint ceilings, walls, doors and trims in that order, so you come home to clean lines and nothing on the carpet.
NSW contractor licence Lic. 000000C (demo)
From the surface up, in the order the work happens. Your written quote lists the same layers by name, so you can see nothing has been skipped.
Picture hooks, dents from the vacuum, hairline cracks over doorways and the odd patch of old repair. Under a fresh coat, every one of those shows more, not less, so they're dealt with before any paint is opened.
Furniture moved to the middle of the room and covered, floors laid with drop sheets taped at the skirting, switch plates and light fittings taken off or masked. Anything fragile, we ask you to pack away first.
Holes and cracks filled, sanded flush and filled again where they've shrunk. Every repair gets a spot of primer, so it doesn't show up as a dull patch through the finish coat.
Ceilings first in a flat ceiling paint, so drips land on walls that haven't been painted yet. Then the walls: cut in by brush along every edge, rolled in between, two coats in your colour.
Skirtings, architraves, window frames and doors last, in a harder-wearing enamel that wipes clean. They're lightly sanded first so the new coat grips the old gloss.
When a freshly painted room looks patchy, the cause is almost always under the paint. A filled hole that wasn't primed soaks up the top coat and dries duller than the wall around it. A crack over a doorway that was painted over opens again within a month. So most of our time in each room goes in before the first coat: filling, sanding, filling the spots that shrank, and priming every repair.
Gloss paint on old doors and trims gets a light sand so the new coat has something to grip. Kitchen walls get washed, because cooking grease stops paint from sticking. If a bathroom ceiling has mould on it, that's treated and the cause talked about, since a fan that doesn't vent outside will grow it back.
Floorboards in an older Newcastle house can be the best thing in it, and we treat them that way. Drop sheets go down and get taped along the skirting so they can't slide, and they stay down until the last coat on the trims is dry. Power points and switch plates come off rather than being painted around. Light fittings are masked or lowered. At the end of each day the brushes and rollers are cleaned outside, not in your laundry sink.
A colour on a card looks different on your wall. A south-facing room in winter makes warm whites look grey, and a west-facing room in the afternoon can turn a pale green yellow. We'll put up sample patches and leave them for you to look at in different light before anyone buys paint. Where a house has a lot of internal doors and trims, the choice of white for those matters nearly as much as the wall colour, and we'll help you pair them.
Ceilings take the most effort per square metre: every stroke is overhead, and a missed patch shows from every angle. We do them first, in a flat ceiling paint that hides minor dips. Ornate cornices and ceiling roses in older houses are cut in by brush. Raked ceilings and stairwells need planks or a platform, and if yours does, it's in the quote.
Wet rooms are where interior paint has the hardest life. Steam from a shower settles on the ceiling every morning, and kitchen walls near the cooktop collect a film you can't always see. So these rooms get a degrease and a wash before any sanding, mould treatment where it's showing, and a paint made for wet areas in a sheen that can be wiped down.
We paint around tiles, splashbacks and cabinetry by hand, with the edges taped. If you'd like the kitchen cupboard doors repainted too, tell us at the quote: that's a separate job with its own prep and a harder enamel, and we'll price it on its own line.
In NSW, residential painting worth more than $5,000 in labour and materials, including GST, needs a contractor licence to do, contract for or advertise. Stand-alone interior painting contracts have been exempt since 2015. We carry the licence anyway, and its number is on your quote.
Your quote lists each room, the surfaces in it, the repairs we found, and the paint by maker, product, sheen and colour for every coat. It says who moves what, and what isn't included, like replacing a cracked cornice or a broken door. You'll know which rooms are done on which days before we start.
As a guide from our own jobs, a three-bedroom house with walls, ceilings and trim usually comes to $7,000 to $14,000 + GST, and one room's walls and ceiling start from about $900 + GST. High ceilings, a lot of patching, dark colours over light ones and extra doors are what push a job up the range.
Yes, and most people do. We work room by room, so the rest of the house stays usable, and we leave each room clean at the end of the day. Bedrooms are usually done during the day so they're dry and back together by night. We can use low-odour paint if anyone in the house is sensitive to the smell.
No, we move it to the middle of each room and cover it. What we ask is that you take down pictures, clear shelves and benchtops, and pack away anything breakable or valuable. Very heavy pieces like a piano or a full bookcase, we'll talk about at the quote.
It can be, as long as the wall is ready for it. Deep colours show every bump and filled hole, so a navy or charcoal wall takes more prep than a pale one. On the New Lambton job in our sample projects, the navy wall was filled and sanded twice before the paint went on.
A flat finish on ceilings hides the most. Low sheen suits living rooms and bedrooms, because it wipes down without looking shiny. Kitchens, bathrooms and laundries do better in a higher sheen that stands up to steam and scrubbing. Doors and trims go in a semi-gloss or gloss enamel.
Yes. A sample patch on your own wall, in your own light, is worth more than any chip in a shop. We put up two or three, ideally on more than one wall, and you look at them in the morning and the evening before deciding. The Hamilton owner in our sample projects tried three before picking one.
A few lines and a photo or two is enough. We'll ring to book a look, then leave you a written quote with every surface and every coat on it. No obligation, and no follow-up calls chasing you if you decide to wait a while longer.