Noxious fumes, tripping over ladders, rags, and open cans of paint—wouldn’t it be nice if the dirty work could be done in your home while you were away soaking up the sun in Sanibel, or sea fishing in Fiji?
Painting is a messy and time-consuming project for a reason. You can’t rush the drying time between primer and paint coats so there is no quick fix. There is a lot of equipment involved like ladders, rollers, brushes, tape, and canvas, and the paint fumes are all-penetrating. Even simply painting the kitchen cabinets or the deck turns out to be much more than the weekend job you initially might think you are getting into.
While you might feel like dealing with the hassle of painting is simply a necessary but nasty part of homeownership, it turns out that your fantasies of being somewhere far away—with bodies in the sand and a tropical drink melting in your hand—can be more than just a fantasy sparked by singing along with the Beach Boys while you drive.
A growing trend has many people choosing vacation time as the perfect time to get the house painted. And that doesn’t mean spending your work or school vacation juggling paint rollers on a step ladder. It means that more and more painting companies are offering interior and exterior painting services that they perform while you are enjoying the Maldives or the mountains.
It turns out that there are many benefits to painting while you’re on vacation.
You’ll Actually Do it Instead of Talking About it
One of the biggest bonuses of choosing to have your paint job done while you are on vacation is the fact that you will finally stop putting it off. It’s easy to procrastinate about painting because it’s such a huge hassle to have done. No one enjoys the mess, the fumes, the expense, and the complete disruption of their home routine. Deciding to enjoy a well-deserved vacation while your home is being painted means that you will finally schedule it. And actually, look forward to it with great anticipation instead of shuddering in dread.
Forgo the Fume Exposure
If you have your house painted while you are away, you can avoid the fumes. While most people find paint fumes irritating, they can be more than an annoyance. Exposure to paint fumes can actually pose a health risk, especially to individuals with asthma or respiratory illnesses. Experts tell us it’s best to wait two to three days for paint to dry before exposing yourself to a painted area. Prolonged exposure to fumes, even with proper ventilation, can cause symptoms. While the amount of toxicity in paint varies among types and brands, even those that are less caustic can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness, irritation of the eyes and throat, and even difficulty breathing.
Exterior painting can also cause enough fumes inside the house to cause symptoms, especially since the exterior of a home requires a great deal of paint. The best deck paint can still cause enough fumes outdoors to impact pets, and people with allergies or sensitivity.
By hiring a painting team to take care of your interior paint job, the fumes can be cleared away before you get home with your new tan.
Extra Efficiency
While you might feel like any project will go more smoothly when you are there to oversee it, the truth is that the presence of homeowners during a paint job can be a hindrance rather than a help. You, your family, and your dog will all be in the way of the painters, just as the painters will be in your way. A painter or painting team can work more efficiently if they don’t have to keep your space cleaned up and livable throughout the process. A lot of time can be saved if they don’t have to clean up and put furniture back in place for you at the end of each day of the painting project. If your home doesn’t have to be livable throughout the project, your painters will spend less of their time prepping before and cleaning up after the job each day, and more time actually accomplishing the job. This means the whole hassle will be over with much sooner. (That doesn’t mean you have to cut your trip short! After all, the paint still has to dry.)
Hide from the Hassle
Having your home painted is a hassle. It means you and your family are all going to be out of your normal routine. Nothing is where it usually goes, nothing stays where you put it, and you have no privacy with painters coming and going with their equipment. It’s definitely a routine-disrupting experience, and not in a good way. So instead of sticking around for this wrecking of your routine, you can have your routine disrupted in a much more pleasurable way by being in a faraway place where being out of your normal habits is a pleasure rather than a pain.
Enjoy Coming Home
While usually leaving your beach destination or cabin in the country is the worst part of a vacation, by having your painting job performed while you are away, you take some of the stings out of having to leave your vacation behind and return home. This time you have something to look forward to when you get there. You can come home to a beautiful house with a new paint color or a freshly stained deck. Or if your painting project was the in the interior of your house and you can look forward to the big reveal when you get home and open the door.
Is it Okay to be Away?
One of the reasons that homeowners might be reluctant to have a painting job done while they are away is their home security. It might give you qualms to think about being far away while strangers traipse in and out of your home where all of your things are. If you aren’t there, you can’t keep track of your valuables and other belongings.
It’s important to use only a licensed painting contractor for your paint job while you are away. Make sure they have good reviews. If possible, go with a contractor recommended by a friend and take the time to get to know them a little before you leave. It’s important to only choose a contractor who offers this kind of service, or one that specializes in painting while owners are away. It’s highly unlikely that any contractor would endanger their own reputation by allowing anything to happen to your home or your valuables while you are away.
Normally, no one looks forward to having their home painted. By choosing to have your paint job done while you are away enjoying a well-earned vacation, you can change that!
