Interior Painting & Decorating

Interior painting done properly

A room can be painted in a day. Painting it so it still looks right in five years takes considerably longer, and almost all of that extra time goes into preparation — the part nobody sees once the job is finished. That is where we spend it.

Modernus decorates interiors across Central and South West London, led by two founders who each have 15+ years of hands-on experience: whole houses, single rooms, hallways and staircases, offices and rental properties. Every job is quoted in writing after a site visit, and we carry full public liability insurance.

What a full redecoration covers

• Walls and ceilings, prepared, primed where needed and finished in full coats
• Skirting boards, architraves, door frames and internal doors
• Cornicing, ceiling roses, picture rails and decorative plaster detail
• Staircases, landings and hallway woodwork
• Window reveals, sills and sash frames
• Feature walls, panelling and built-in joinery

The part that decides how long it lasts

Assessment first

Before anything is filled or sanded, we look at what is already on the wall. Existing coatings are checked room by room for soundness, because a finish coat applied over failing paint fails with it. Anything loose or unsound comes off.

Filling, sanding and caulking

Cracks are raked out and filled, dents and nail holes made good, and everything sanded flat. Joints between woodwork and plaster are re-caulked, which is what makes the finished lines read straight rather than ragged. Dust is controlled at source during sanding rather than swept up afterwards.

Priming

Repaired and previously bare areas are spot-primed so they do not flash through the finish. In older properties, plaster absorbency varies noticeably from one wall to the next, so priming is adjusted surface by surface rather than applied at a uniform rate across the room.

Protection

Floors, fittings and furniture are sheeted and masked before work starts, and each working area is cleared down at the end of the day. Most of our clients stay in the property while we work, so we sequence room by room rather than opening up the whole house at once.

Paints and finishes

Different surfaces take different punishment, so they get different specifications. Hallways, staircases and other high-traffic areas are finished in a durable, washable product; joinery, which takes the most direct contact, gets a harder-wearing coating again. We confirm colours on site under the property's own light before committing to a full coat — a shade almost always reads differently on a wall than it does on a chart, and it is far cheaper to find that out beforehand.

We are not tied to one manufacturer. Farrow & Ball comes up often on the kind of properties we work in, but the paint is chosen for the job rather than out of loyalty to a brand. Where a client has a preference, we work to it. Where a client would rather leave it to us, we specify the best product for each surface and set out what we have chosen before any of it goes on the wall.

Areas we cover

We decorate interiors throughout Central and South West London, including Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill and Fulham, along with Putney, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Richmond, Kingston and Sutton. Where a room is being papered as well as painted, our wallpaper hanging is done in the same programme. See the full range of what we do on the services overview, or ask for a quote.