We send a prep checklist to every client the week before our crew arrives, because the projects that start clean finish clean. With 2,100 residential estimates behind us since 2015, the pattern is clear: the difference between a smooth first day and a chaotic one usually comes down to what happened in the seven days before the trucks pulled up.
What follows is the timeline we hand to our clients, the items we move versus the items they move, and the questions about kids, pets, and daily life we answer most often the week before a job starts.
The Day-by-Day Timeline We Send Our Clients
The biggest source of first-day stress is doing all the prep on Sunday night. We break it into a week, and clients who follow this version arrive Monday relaxed rather than exhausted:
| Day 7 (Mon) | Confirm crew start time. Walk through scope with us by phone if anything has changed. |
| Day 6 (Tue) | Decide where pets will go during the project. Book a kennel or arrange a friend’s house if needed. |
| Day 5 (Wed) | Take down wall art, mirrors, and shelves in rooms being painted. Patch any nail holes that need filling (we can do this too, named in the scope). |
| Day 4 (Thu) | Empty closets and shelves in rooms being painted. Move small furniture out of the room or to the center. |
| Day 3 (Fri) | Clear pathways from the front door to all work areas. Remove anything fragile from adjacent rooms. |
| Day 2 (Sat) | Plan the family’s daily routine for the project week (work-from-home space, kids’ play area, meals). |
| Day 1 (Sun) | Final walk-through of the house with our scope in hand. Make sure nothing was missed. Confirm Monday start time. |
The week-out call we make with each client covers the timeline and any specifics for the home: hardwood floors that need extra protection, allergies that affect product choice, a baby’s nap schedule that determines noise windows. The more we know before Monday, the smaller the surprises on the job.
What You Move, What Stays
The single most common question we get during the prep week is “do I need to move everything out of the room?” The honest answer is no. We bring drop cloths, plastic sheeting, and furniture covers on each job, and we move what is too large for a homeowner to handle on their own. What we ask clients to handle is the breakable, the personal, and the inventory:
| Room | You Move | We Move / Cover |
|---|---|---|
| Living room | Decor, electronics, breakables, picture frames | Couches, bookshelves, entertainment center |
| Bedrooms | Bedside items, lamps, personal items, jewelry | Beds, dressers, large furniture |
| Kitchen | Counters, magnets, items on top of fridge, anything in upper cabinet glass | Refrigerator (if movable), small appliances we cover |
| Bathrooms | Toiletries, towels, anything on the counter or shelves | Nothing typically; we work around fixed fixtures |
| Office | Computers, monitors, files, anything sentimental | Desks, large bookshelves, filing cabinets |
We do not move heavy items if the client wants them painted around in place. For a house interior project, our crews mask, cover, and protect everything that stays in the room. For a cabinet repaint, we ask clients to empty all cabinets and drawers before our spray day because cabinet doors come off and the boxes need to be fully accessible.
Floors, Surfaces, and Fragile Items We Handle vs Things You Handle
Floor and surface protection is part of what we do on every interior job. We bring everything needed and lay it down ourselves the morning of Day 1:
What we ask clients to handle is the fragile and the irreplaceable. The items that get knocked off shelves during furniture moves, or the items you would rather not have a crew member handle, should be relocated before Monday morning:
When we walk a house the week before, we point out items we recommend the client move themselves rather than leave for us to navigate around. The conversation is a normal part of the pre-project walkthrough.
Kids, Pets, and Daily Life During the Project
The two questions we get most often during prep week are “what do we do with the kids” and “where do the dogs go.” Both have realistic answers:
Call us 615-987-8011 if your home has any specific access concerns we need to plan around (medical equipment, security system codes, elderly family member’s room, alarm pets). We work them into the day-by-day plan before Monday.
Things to Check the Morning Crews Arrive
The Monday morning of a project is rarely as smooth as the Sunday night feels. The list we run through with clients before we knock on the door:
What We Do When You Have Not Prepped Anything
Life happens. The week before a job, we have had clients deal with sick kids, work emergencies, moves, and one funeral. When a homeowner calls Friday and says “I have not done any of it,” we adjust.
Our crews are equipped to handle most of the prep themselves: moving furniture out of the way, taking down framed art and shelving, emptying closets if necessary, covering everything else. The cost shows up either in additional prep hours on the invoice (named in the scope amendment we write before Monday) or in pushing the start time on Day 1 by a few hours. Neither is a problem if we know in advance.
What does not work is showing up Monday morning to a house that was supposed to be prepped, finding it untouched, and burning two hours of paid crew time on prep that was already supposed to be done. We handle this honestly: we charge for the extra hours, document the change, and start work. The conversation goes better when it happens Friday than Monday.
The Final Walkthrough Before We Start
Each project we run begins with a final walkthrough between the lead painter on the job and the homeowner. This is a fifteen-minute conversation that confirms the scope, the room sequence, the daily access plan, and any client-specific items. During the walkthrough we point out anything we noticed during the week-of call that was not in the original quote. A hairline crack in the ceiling that needs spot repair before paint. A baseboard that needs replacement. A stained section of trim that may need an extra primer pass.
Anything that changes scope gets documented in writing on the day, signed by both parties, before work begins. The same principle we apply across where our crews work holds on each job: surprises on the final invoice break trust faster than any other mistake we could make.
The final walkthrough also covers what we will not be doing. If the original scope was interior walls and trim and the client now wants the outside repaint handled in the same window, that becomes a separate quote, not a verbal add-on. The same logic applies to specialty work like fence painting project or garage coating job where the prep requirements and material costs are entirely different from interior work.
Bottom Line
The week before painters arrive is more about logistics than labor. The clients who follow our day-by-day timeline land Monday morning ready to hand us the house and step out of the way for a few days. The clients who try to do everything Sunday night land Monday morning tired and stressed, and the project starts on the wrong foot.
We are AllBright Pro Painting in Smyrna, operating under TN license #1001565828. Our ten to fifteen painters across five teams run residential repaints across the Nashville and Williamson County metro every week, and the prep guide goes out a week ahead of the crew so the work starts the way we want it to. Call to get on our schedule and we will send you the prep guide the week before our crew arrives. Reach the AllBright home team at 615-987-8011.