The standard wisdom, as mentioned by the fellow renting floor sanders at the local big box store, is to paint the ceiling first, paint the walls second, and finally sand the hardwood floor and paint with polyurethane.
I'm concerned by the dust generated during sanding. Even if I wait several days for the walls to cure properly, I'm sure some wood dust will need to be wiped.
And so I'm wondering: It seems that sanding/painting the floors after painting the ceilings, and painting the walls last, is the more sensible approach. Is it?
What about the ceilings? Since I'll anyway have the floor carefully covered with plastic sheets (or lots of newspapers?), does it make sense to also paint the ceilings after doing the hardwood floor?
Best Answer
No. Modern "dustless" sanders are quite clean, and if you have to wipe some walls it is still likely less work than protecting the floor perfectly. And while you can always clean up dust, you can't touch up paint drips or floor scratches nearly as easily.
I made this mistake. I painted after doing floors in my kitchen renovation, because the floors were hired out but I did the painting myself later. There are some small drips of paint still visible on the floor. Not a huge deal, and I could have been more careful and avoided them, but if the order were reversed it would not have been a problem.
So bottom line, you can do either approach, but all other things being equal, it's preferable to paint before refinishing floors.