Walk into a beautifully finished drawing room and the last thing you will think about is filler. Yet run your eye along the skirting in raking afternoon light — the hard test every London room sets — and what you are admiring is not paint. It is preparation. On our commissions, more than half of every programme happens before a topcoat is opened, and it is where the finish is genuinely won.
Protection comes first
The first day of a commission usually involves no decorating at all. Floors are sheeted and taped, furniture is moved or wrapped, ironmongery comes off the doors, radiators and switches are masked. Protection is part of doing the job properly — priced in, never itemised — because a flawless wall means little beside a speckled floor. It is also the courtesy a lived-in home deserves; most of the houses we finish are occupied throughout.
Making good, honestly
Old walls move. Georgian lath-and-plaster, Victorian lime, mid-century gypsum — each cracks and hollows in its own way, and each asks for a different repair. Cracks are raked out and filled, not painted over; junctions between wood and wall are caulked with a flexible sealant so they do not reopen with the seasons; hollow plaster is investigated rather than hidden. If we find damp or movement, we say so and stop — painting over a problem is the one economy we never make.
The sanding nobody sees
Between every stage sits abrasive paper. Filled repairs are sanded flat; previously glossed woodwork is keyed so new coats can grip; each undercoat is lightly rubbed down before the next. We sand with dust-controlled equipment — extraction at the tool — which is why a properly run job produces so much less mess than most people fear. The flatness you see in a finished wall under a picture light is made here, not with the brush.
The right primer for each surface
Primers are where specification earns its keep. Bare plaster wants a thinned mist coat so the paint keys into the surface rather than sitting on it. Resinous knots in new timber need sealing or they will bleed amber through any white you choose. Previously painted gloss needs an adhesion primer; bare metal, a rust-inhibiting one. Every substrate on a job is matched to a system in the written specification before we begin, so nothing is guessed at on a ladder.
Then, and only then, the paint
Premium paint applied to poor preparation fails beautifully — for about a year. The reverse is nearly impossible. So coats go on in the right conditions, with proper drying times between them, cutting-in by hand and woodwork laid off so the surface is unbroken. Three coats minimum on woodwork is our standard, and zero snags at handover is the standard rather than the aspiration.
Preparation is unglamorous, largely invisible, and the single best predictor of how a finish will look in five years. It is also, honestly, most of what you are paying for — which is why we put it in writing. If you are weighing up a project, our short guide Preparing Your Home for the Decorators sets out what those first days look like from your side of the dust sheets.
This piece is part of our complete guide to decorating a period London home.